A Laplace-Transform Green's Function for Two-Zone Diffusion with Energy Losses: Application to the Geminga Pulsar Halo
Abstract
Extended TeV gamma-ray halos around pulsars are commonly interpreted as evidence for slow diffusion of high-energy electrons and positrons near their sources, with diffusion coefficients about two orders of magnitude below the Galactic average inferred from B/C measurements. A two-zone diffusion picture offers a natural phenomenological resolution: particles are temporarily confined in a slow-diffusion region around the source and subsequently propagate through the outer region with a diffusion coefficient close to the Galactic average. Using a Laplace-transform method, we derive an analytical Green's-function solution to the spherically symmetric two-zone diffusion equation, in which the diffusion coefficient changes discontinuously at r_b. The solution satisfies continuity of both the particle density and the diffusive flux at the boundary and reduces to the standard Gaussian kernel in the one-zone limit. For the parameter set used in our comparison, the spatial kernel and the positron flux at Earth agree numerically with an independent integral solution of the same two-zone problem. Applied to Geminga, the two-zone models examined here produce a more extended outer particle distribution and broader positron spectra than the homogeneous diffusion model, with higher positron fluxes in the TeV range. The adopted injection model further affects the height and shape of the high-energy spectral peak. The predicted gamma-ray surface-brightness profile also reproduces the main radial decline observed by HAWC.
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BibTeX
@misc{li2026laplacetransform,
title = {{A Laplace-Transform Green's Function for Two-Zone Diffusion with Energy Losses: Application to the Geminga Pulsar Halo}},
author = {Furong Li and Wei Liu and Yali Shao and Yiqing Guo},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.05808},
eprint = {2611.05808},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.05808},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Laplace-Transform Green's Function for Two-Zone Diffusion with Energy Losses: Application to the Geminga Pulsar Halo
AU - Furong Li
AU - Wei Liu
AU - Yali Shao
AU - Yiqing Guo
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/04
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.05808
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.05808
AB - Extended TeV gamma-ray halos around pulsars are commonly interpreted as evidence for slow diffusion of high-energy electrons and positrons near their sources, with diffusion coefficients about two orders of magnitude below the Galactic average inferred from B/C measurements. A two-zone diffusion picture offers a natural phenomenological resolution: particles are temporarily confined in a slow-diffusion region around the source and subsequently propagate through the outer region with a diffusion coefficient close to the Galactic average. Using a Laplace-transform method, we derive an analytical Green's-function solution to the spherically symmetric two-zone diffusion equation, in which the diffusion coefficient changes discontinuously at r_b. The solution satisfies continuity of both the particle density and the diffusive flux at the boundary and reduces to the standard Gaussian kernel in the one-zone limit. For the parameter set used in our comparison, the spatial kernel and the positron flux at Earth agree numerically with an independent integral solution of the same two-zone problem. Applied to Geminga, the two-zone models examined here produce a more extended outer particle distribution and broader positron spectra than the homogeneous diffusion model, with higher positron fluxes in the TeV range. The adopted injection model further affects the height and shape of the high-energy spectral peak. The predicted gamma-ray surface-brightness profile also reproduces the main radial decline observed by HAWC.
ER -