Ultrahigh-Energy Photons as a Probe of Nearby Transient Ultrahigh-Energy Cosmic-Ray Sources and Possible Lorentz-Invariance Violation

TL;DR

This paper explores how ultrahigh-energy gamma rays from transient cosmic sources can help identify UHECR origins and test fundamental physics like Lorentz-invariance, with promising detection prospects and strong constraints.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential of detecting ultrahigh-energy gamma rays from transient sources to identify UHECR sources and constrain Lorentz-invariance violation more effectively than current methods.

Findings

Detection of 1-100 events is feasible with current and future detectors.

Nearby transient sources have higher detection probabilities than neutrinos.

Ultrahigh-energy gamma rays can set limits on Lorentz-invariance violation over 10,000 times stronger.

Abstract

Detecting neutrinos and photons is crucial to identifying the sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), especially for transient sources. We focus on ultrahigh-energy gamma-ray emission from transient sources such as gamma-ray bursts, since >EeV gamma rays can be more direct evidence of UHECRs than PeV neutrinos and GeV-TeV gamma rays. We demonstrate that coincident detections of about 1-100 events can be expected by current and future UHECR detectors such as Auger and JEM-EUSO, and the detection probability can be higher than that of neutrinos for nearby transient sources at <50-100 Mpc. They may be useful for constraining the uncertain cosmic radio background as well as knowing the source properties and maximum energy of UHECRs. They can also give us more than 10^4 times stronger limits on the Lorentz-invariance violation than current constraints.