Strong Evidence for Gamma-ray Line Emission from the Inner Galaxy

Understand

Using 3.7 years of \Fermi-LAT data, we examine the diffuse 80-200 GeV emission in the inner Galaxy and find a resolved gamma-ray feature at $\sim 110-140$ GeV.

• We model the spatial distribution of this emission with a $\sim3\degree$ FWHM Gaussian, finding a best fit position $1.5\degree$ West of the Galactic Center.
• Even better fits are obtained for off-center Einasto and power-law profiles, which are preferred over the null (no line) hypothesis by $6.5\sigma$ ($5.0\sigma/5.4\sigma$ after trials factor correction for one/two line case) assuming an NFW density profile centered at $(\ell, b)=(-1.5\degree,0\degree)$ with a power index $\alpha=1.2$ .
• The energy spectrum of this structure is consistent with a single spectral line (at energy $127.0\pm 2.0$ GeV with $\chi^2=4.48$ for 4 d.o.f.).