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

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.