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Abstract |
Pulsars have long been predicted to be sources of electron/positron (e-e+) pairs.
Highly energetic e-e+ in the wind regions, or inner magnetospheres of pulsars, and
also when released into the interstellar medium, can inverse-Compton (IC) scatter ambient
photons to very high energies. Recent HAWC observations of extended TeV-scale gamma-ray
emission around Geminga and Monogem have provided indirect evidence for multi-TeV e-e+
acceleration in young pulsar nebulae. However, predicting and observing high energy gamma-ray
emission from rotation-powered millisecond pulsars (MSPs) presents a number of challenges compared
to that of the non-recycled pulsar population. During this talk, I will summarize these challenges,
and present our recent exciting results where we find evidence for very high energy gamma ray emission
from populations of MSPs residing in globular clusters of the Milky Way. I will further highlight the unique
capabilities of the Cherenkov Telescope Array to detect the expected IC signal from a putative population
of 10 to 50 thousand MSPs in the center of our Galaxy. |
