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Galactic diffuse gamma-ray and neutrino emission from cosmic-ray interactions in stellar atmospheres

Yanbo Wang1,2, Zhenglong Wang1,2, Rui Zhang1, and Yi Zhang1,2,*

  • *Contact author: zhangyi@pmo.ac.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 023050 – Published 24 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/7563-hgn7

Abstract

The Galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission is conventionally modeled as the product of cosmic-ray interactions with the interstellar medium. However, the cumulative contribution of stellar atmospheres acting as hadronic interaction targets remains an unexplored multimessenger background. In this work, we present the first systematic evaluation of this stellar diffuse emission by coupling MESA stellar evolution profiles and magnetic-field-modulated cosmic-ray transport with a 3D Galactic population synthesis framework. We find that the cumulative stellar contribution to the Galactic diffuse gamma-ray flux is negligible at 1 TeV, and the associated diffuse neutrino flux (∼10−17  TeV cm−2 s−1 sr−1) remains orders of magnitude below current IceCube limits. Nevertheless, at ultrahigh energies (>10  TeV), this emission establishes an irreducible local background that overtakes the strongly attenuated extragalactic isotropic gamma-ray background. Our results demonstrate that the Galactic stellar ensemble is a strictly subdominant background, indicating that stellar subtraction templates are not required for identifying Galactic PeVatrons or constraining dark matter annihilation.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 023050– Published 24 July, 2026
  • Received 14 April 2026
  • Accepted 18 June 2026
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