Long-term Neutrino Afterglows from Gamma-Ray Bursts

Abstract

It is widely believed that multiwavelength afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) originate from relativistic blast waves. We here show that in such blast waves, a significant fraction of the energy of shock-accelerated protons would be lost due to pion production by interactions with afterglow photons. This could lead to long-term production of $10^{16}$--$10^{18}$ eV neutrinos and sub-TeV ${\hat{I}}^3$-rays that accompany with usual afterglows, provided that the protons are accelerated to $10^{19}$ eV in the blast waves.

10 pages, A&A accepted