Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

High-energy X-rays from the Galactic Center:
“zombie stars” and particle physics

Kerstin Perez

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The inner parsecs of the Galaxy contain one of the highest concentrations of both high-energy sources and dark matter in the Milky Way. The supermassive black hole, pulsar wind nebulae, supernova remnants, X-ray binaries, and hot interstellar gas are copious emitters of X-rays and gamma-rays. In addition, this region contains a large density of dark matter, making it an important source of both dark matter interaction signatures and backgrounds to dark matter searches. NuSTAR provides a view of the hard X-ray (3-79 keV) band, a critical bridge between the soft X-ray and gamma-ray emission, with unprecedented angular resolution. I will present the first sub-parsec scale images of the Galactic Center in hard X-rays, obtained with NuSTAR, which offer leading constraints on the radiative decay of dark matter, in particular from sterile neutrinos, as well as new insight into the ?zombie star? population that underlies this emission.