Photodisintegrated gamma rays and neutrinos from heavy nuclei in the gamma-ray burst jet of GRB 130427A

TL;DR

This paper investigates how photodisintegration of heavy nuclei like Iron in the jet of GRB 130427A can produce the observed high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos, providing a hadronic explanation for the spectral features.

Contribution

It introduces a model where Iron nuclei photodisintegration explains the GeV gamma-ray component and predicts associated neutrino fluxes, linking nuclear interactions to observed emissions.

Findings

Iron nuclei photodisintegration accounts for 1-70 GeV gamma-ray component.

Secondary neutron decay produces neutrinos up to 2 TeV, consistent with IceCube non-detection.

The model requires about ten times the energy of the prompt keV-MeV emission.

Abstract

Detection of ~ 0.1-70 GeV prompt gamma-ray emission from the exceptionally bright gamma-ray burst (GRB) 130427A by the Fermi-Large Area Telescope provides an opportunity to explore the physical processes of GeV gamma-ray emission from the GRB jets. In this work we discuss interactions of Iron and Oxygen nuclei with observed keV-MeV photons in the jet of GRB 130427A in order to explain an additional, hard spectral component observed during 11.5-33 second after trigger. The photodisintegration time scale for Iron nuclei is comparable to or shorter than this duration. We find that gamma rays resulting from the Iron nuclei disintegration can account for the hard power-law component of the spectra in the 1-70 GeV range, before the gamma-gamma to electron-positron pair production with low-energy photons severely attenuates emission of higher energy photons. Electron antineutrinos from the secondary neutron decay, on the other hand, can be emitted with energies up to 2 TeV. The flux of these neutrinos is low and consistent with non-detection of GRB 130427A by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The required total energy in the Iron nuclei for this hadronic model for GeV emission is approximately 10 times the observed total energy released in the prompt keV-MeV emission.