Known Radio Pulsars Do Not Contribute to the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess

Understand

Observations using the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) have found a significant gamma-ray excess surrounding the center of the Milky Way (GC).

• One possible interpretation of this excess invokes gamma-ray emission from an undiscovered population of either young or recycled pulsars densely clustered throughout the inner kiloparsec of the Milky Way.
• While these systems, by construction, have individual fluxes that lie below the point source sensitivity of the Fermi-LAT, they may already be observed in multiwavelength observations.
• Notably the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) catalog of radio pulsars includes 270 sources observed in the inner 10 degrees around the GC.