Self-Generated Cosmic-Ray Confinement in TeV Halos: Implications for TeV Gamma-Ray Emission and the Positron Excess

Understand

Recent observations have detected extended TeV gamma-ray emission surrounding young and middle-aged pulsars.

• The morphology of these "TeV halos" requires cosmic-ray diffusion to be locally suppressed by a factor of ~100-1000 compared to the typical interstellar medium.
• No model currently explains this suppression.
• We show that cosmic-ray self-confinement can significantly inhibit diffusion near pulsars.