Galactic cosmic ray propagation: sub-PeV diffuse gamma-ray and neutrino emission

Abstract: The Tibet ASgamma experiment just reported their measurement of sub-PeV diffuse gamma ray emission from the Galactic disk, with the highest energy up to 957 TeV. These gamma-rays are most likely the hadronic origin by cosmic ray interaction with interstellar gas in the Galaxy. This measurement provides direct evidence to the hypothesis that the Galactic cosmic rays can be accelerated beyond PeV energies. In this work, we try to explain the sub-PeV diffuse gamma-ray spectrum within cosmic rays diffusive propagation model. We find there is a tension between the sub-PeV diffuse gamma rays and the local cosmic ray spectrum. To describe the sub-PeV diffuse gamma-ray flux, it generally requires larger local cosmic-ray flux than measurement in the knee region. We further calculate the PeV neutrino flux from the cosmic ray propagation model. Even all of these sub-PeV diffuse gamma rays originate from the propagation, the Galactic neutrinos only account for less than ~15% of observed flux, most of which are still from extragalactic sources.