Old Isolated Accreting Neutron Stars: The Diffuse X--ray Emission From The Galactic Center

Abstract

The contribution of weakly--magnetized ($B\sim 10^9$ G) neutron stars accreting the interstellar medium to the diffuse X--ray emission observed in the Galactic Center is investigated. It is shown that, under rather conservative assumptions about the neutron stars and gas distributions, the accretion luminosity can account for a sizable fraction, possibly most, of the detected X--ray flux in the 2.5--7 keV band. In particular, model results are compared with {\it Granat\/} data and show a general agreement in both the flux energy and radial distributions.

10 pages, AASTEX, 3 figures, to be published in ApJ