Deciphering the ~18 TeV photons from GRB 221009A

Abstract

On 9 October, 2022, an extremely powerful gamma-ray burst, GRB 221009A, was detected by several instruments. Despite being obstructed by the Milky Way galaxy, its afterglow outburst outshone all other GRBs seen before. LHAASO detected several thousands very high energy photons extending up to 18 TeV. Detection of such energetic photons are unexpected due to the large opacity of the Universe. It is possible that in the afterglow epoch the intrinsic very high energy photon flux from the source might have increased manifolds, which could compensate the attenuation by pair-production with the extragalactic background light. We propose such a scenario and show that very high energy photons can be observed on the Earth from the interaction of very high energy protons with the seed synchrotron photons in the external forward shock region of the GRB jet.

8 pages, 3 figures, to be published in ApJ Letters

References in corpus (8)

• The Imprint of The Extragalactic Background Light in the Gamma-Ray Spectra of Blazars
• A Universal Scaling for the Energetics of Relativistic Jets From Black Hole Systems
• Gamma Ray Bursts in the Swift-Fermi Era
• Multi-TeV flaring from high energy blazars: An evidence of the photohadronic process
• Origin of sub-TeV afterglow emission from gamma-ray bursts GRB 190114C and GRB 180720B
• The VHE SED modelling of Markarian 501 in 2009
• A Significant Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance associated with Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 221009A
• Secondary GeV-TeV emission from ultra-high-energy cosmic rays accelerated by GRB 221009A

Cited by in corpus (11)

• The Radio to GeV Afterglow of GRB 221009A
• GRB 221009A: An ordinary nearby GRB with extraordinary observational properties
• Light scalar explanation for 18 TeV GRB 221009A
• Astrophysical and Cosmological Searches for Lorentz Invariance Violation
• Implication of GRB 221009A: Can TeV Emission Come from the GRB Prompt Phase?
• Swift/UVOT: 18 Years of Long GRB Discoveries and Advances
• First Detection of the Powerful Gamma Ray Burst GRB221009A by the THEMIS ESA and SST particle detectors on October 9, 2022
• TeV afterglow from GRB 221009A: photohadronic origin?
• Constraining the redshift of BL Lac VER J0521+211
• A photohadronic interpretation of the H.E.S.S. afterglow observations from GRB 221009A
• Jitter Mechanism as a Kind of Coherent Radiation: Constrained by the GRB 221009A Emission at 18 TeV