Pulsars and Very High-Energy Cosmic-Ray Electrons

In the study of the propagation of cosmic-ray electrons, the use of a continuous source distribution is not valid in the range of very high energies. The electron spectrum in that energy range depends dn the age and distance of a few local sources. It is shown that if the far-infrared background discovered recently exists in the Galaxy, the very high-energy electrons observed at Earth probably all come from the source Vela X, and a cutoff energy at about 2 X 10 BeV is predicted. Implications on the propagation of cosmic rays in the Galaxy are discussed.