Jitter radiation: towards TeV-photons of gamma-ray bursts

TL;DR

This paper proposes jitter radiation as a mechanism to explain very high energy gamma-ray emissions from gamma-ray bursts, surpassing the synchrotron limit and offering an alternative to inverse Compton scattering.

Contribution

It introduces jitter radiation in small-scale magnetic fields as a novel explanation for VHE gamma-ray emissions in GRBs, expanding the understanding of high-energy astrophysical processes.

Findings

Jitter radiation can produce VHE photons exceeding 160 MeV.

Applied jitter radiation model to explain GRB 190114C and GRB 180720B observations.

Suggests broader applicability of jitter radiation to other VHE sources.

Abstract

The synchrotron mechanism has the radiation limit of about 160 MeV, and it is not possible to explain the very high energy (VHE) photons that are emitted by high-energy objects. Inverse Compton scattering as a traditional process is applied for the explanation of the VHE emission. In this paper, jitter radiation, the relativistic electron radiation in the random and small-scale magnetic field, is proposed to be a possible mechanism to produce VHE photons. The jitter radiation frequency is associated with the perturbation field. The spectral index of the jitter radiation is dominated by the kinetic turbulence. We utilize the jitter radiation to explain the gamma-ray burst (GRB 190114C and GRB 180720B) VHE emissions that were recently detected by the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. We suggest that this mechanism can be applied to other kinds of VHE sources.