ASTRO In the literature: contested

Does the GeV excess follow the stellar bulge or a spherical halo?

In plain words

Pulsars would follow the elongated, box-shaped bulge of stars, while dark matter would make a round glow.

Precise statement

With interstellar-emission model uncertainty marginalized (families of cosmic-ray propagation models, template or nonparametric fits), determine whether the spatial distribution of the excess is better fit by a boxy or X-shaped stellar-bulge template or by a spherically symmetric squared generalized-NFW profile with inner slope $\gamma \sim 1.2$. Answer: a likelihood ratio or Bayes factor with systematic uncertainty that is stable across foreground models.

What would settle it

A morphology preference that holds across all foreground models consistent with the rest of the gamma-ray sky.

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