arXiv · 2303.05741
Gluon Condensation Signature in the GeV Gamma-Ray Spectra of Pulsars
Abstract
The accumulation of gluons inside nucleons, i.e., the gluon condensation, may lead to a characteristic broken power-law gamma-ray spectrum in high-energy nucleon collisions. Here we show that the observed spectra of at least 25 sources in the second Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars can be well fitted by such a broken power-law function that has only four free parameters. It strongly indicates that the gamma-ray emission from these pulsars is of hadronic origin, but with gluon condensation inside hadrons. It is well known that the quark-gluon distribution in a free nucleon is different from that in a bound nucleon. This work exposes the nuclear $A$ dependence of the gluon condensation effect, where $A$ refers to the baryon number. Our study reveals the gluon condensation under the condition of $A\to\infty$, which may open a new window for eavesdropping on the structure of compact stars on the subnuclear level.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Ze-Cheng Zou, Yong-Feng Huang, Cheng-Ming Li, He-Rui Zheng, Wei Zhu. 2023-03-10. Gluon Condensation Signature in the GeV Gamma-Ray Spectra of Pulsars. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.107.063032
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.