Leptonic and hadronic models of the high-energy nebula around V4641 Sgr
Phys. Rev. D 113, 103053 – Published 29 May, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/bmdz-54dk
Abstract
A prominent, 200-pc-scale high-energy nebula surrounding the microquasar V4641 Sgr is the brightest known gamma-ray source in the southern sky at . In this paper, we develop self-consistent leptonic, hadronic, and leptohadronic models that reproduce both the observed spectrum and morphology of the source. Purely leptonic models are energetically more favorable yet they require rather specific morphological assumptions. The gamma-ray morphology of the source can be better explained within a hadronic scenario based on the identification of cold gas structures spatially correlated with the observed gamma-ray emission. However, a purely hadronic model for the source emission requires a substantial energy reservoir in protons and fails to reproduce the extended x-ray emission recently detected by XRISM. We show that emission including a combination of leptonic and hadronic components can reproduce both the spectral and morphological properties of the source. We provide predictions for the x-ray and neutrino spectra of the nebula that can discriminate the hadronic and leptonic contributions to the overall source signal.
