# TeV Burst of Gamma-Ray Bursts and Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays

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Two major ground-based cosmic ray/gamma-ray detectors, the Tibet air shower array (Amenomori et al. 1996) and the HEGRA AIROBICC Cherenkov array (Padilla et al. 1998) have independently reported significant excesses of 10–20 TeV gamma-rays coincident with some GRBs both in direction and burst time. There are 57 GRBs detected by the BATSE (Meegan et al. 1996) in the field of view of the Tibet array, and the Tibet group found that several GRBs out of the 57 GRBs show significant excess of 10 TeV gamma-ray events with a time scale of $``$ 10 seconds. The statistical significance was estimated to be about 6 sigma. There are four GRBs in the field of view of the HEGRA array, and the HEGRA group observed 11 gamma-ray like events above 20 TeV in a 4-minutes bin coincident with GRB920925c in the GRANAT/WATCH GRB catalog (Sazonov et al. 1998), whereas only 0.93 events are expected as background (5.4 sigma). The chance probability taking into account an appropriate trial factor was estimated as 0.3 %. Seven out of the 11 gamma-ray events are clustered within 22 seconds, suggesting that the burst time scale is $``$ 10 seconds also for this GRB. Considering the fact that two different experimental groups independently reported similar significant signals of 10–20 TeV gamma-rays, now we must seriously take into consideration these very high energy (VHE) emissions. Although further observations are necessary to confirm these indications of VHE bursts, in this letter we show that these VHE bursts, if confirmed, would result in a drastic change of our picture of GRBs.

There is a serious problem in interpreting these VHE gamma-rays. The cosmological origin of GRBs has almost been confirmed (Metzger et al. 1997; Kulkarni et al. 1998) and most of GRBs are considered to come from large distances beyond redshift $`z1`$. It is well known that VHE gamma-rays above $``$ TeV from such cosmological distances are not visible because they suffer serious attenuation by electron-positron pair creation with the intergalactic infrared background radiation (Stecker, de Jager, & Salamon 1992 and references therein). A recent calculation (Stecker & de Jager 1998) shows that the optical depth $`\tau `$ for 10 TeV gamma-rays is about 5–10 (corresponding to an attenuation factor of $`e^\tau 7\times 10^3`$$`5\times 10^5`$) for the source redshift of $`z=0.1`$–0.3, and hence there is a horizon for such gamma-rays at $`z0.2`$. Since the GRB920925c has a large energy fluence (Sazonov et al. 1998) of $`2.1\times 10^5\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ in 20–60 keV (typical fluence range of the BATSE catalog is $`10^7`$$`10^4\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ in 50–300 keV), it is likely that the GRBs having the VHE emission are nearby bursts within $`z\stackrel{<}{}0.2`$. In fact, with typical distance scales of $`z_{\mathrm{max}}`$ = 1–3, where $`z_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the redshift of the most distant GRBs observed by the BATSE, a few percent of the BATSE GRBs are expected to be located around $`z0.1`$–0.3. This is consistent with the fact that only a few out of 57 BATSE GRBs in the Tibet data seem to have VHE emission. It should be noted that, although the GRBs having the VHE emission must be the nearest bursts, the flux of keV–MeV gamma-rays is not necessarily the brightest because there may be intrinsic luminosity dispersion of GRBs.

The energy fluence of 10 TeV gamma-rays from GRB920925c was estimated (Padilla et al. 1998) as $`6.9\times 10^6\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, which is comparable to that in the soft gamma-ray range of 20–60 keV ($`2.1\times 10^5\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2`$). The VHE fluence of a few GRBs observed by the Tibet array was estimated as $`10^6`$$`4\times 10^5\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (Amenomori et al. 1996), which is also comparable to that of soft gamma-rays of relatively bright GRBs. Furthermore, we must take into account the fact that the intergalactic attenuation factor of 10–20 TeV gamma-rays is likely as small as $`10^2`$$`10^3`$ for $`z`$ 0.1–0.2. This suggests that the energy emitted as VHE gamma-rays is much larger than that emitted as keV–MeV gamma-rays by a factor of $`10^2`$$`10^3`$. This emission is extraordinarily energetic, but in the following we show that such VHE emission can be reasonably explained by synchrotron radiation of $`10^{2021}`$ eV protons in GRBs. The origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), whose energy extends beyond $`10^{20}`$ eV, is one of the most interesting mysteries in astrophysics as well as GRBs, and the observations of 10 TeV gamma-rays by the Tibet and HEGRA groups strongly suggest that these two mysterious phenomena have a common origin, as it has been speculated (Waxman 1995; Milgrom & Usov 1995; Vietri 1995).

Since the energy emitted as 10 TeV gamma-rays is much larger than that of soft gamma-rays, the VHE emission is likely produced by protons while the keV–MeV emission is produced by electrons. The current theory of GRBs (e.g., Piran 1997) attributes the origin of gamma-ray emission to dissipation of the kinetic energy of ultra relativistic bulk motion with a Lorentz factor of $`\gamma 10^2`$$`10^3`$, in internal shocks generated by relative difference in speeds of ejected matter. Therefore at least in the initial stage protons must carry much larger energy than electrons by a factor of $`m_p/m_e2,000`$. The emission mechanism of keV–MeV gamma-rays is generally considered to be electron synchrotron. If the energy carried by protons is effectively emitted as VHE photons before the equipartition between protons and electrons is achieved, the very strong flux of 10 TeV gamma-rays observed by the two detectors is naturally explained. Since the energy emitted as keV–MeV gamma-rays is typically $`10^{5253}`$ erg for cosmological GRBs, the total energy liberated by one GRB event must be as large as $`10^{56}`$ erg if radiation is isotropic. This energy may seem extremely large, but if GRBs are strongly beamed, such a huge amount of energy can be supplied. For example, the ‘microquasar model’ (Paczyński 1998) can produce about $`5\times 10^{54}`$ erg and the above energy can be explained if the beaming factor, $`4\pi /\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$, is larger than $``$ 20. Such beaming factor is not unreasonable because the origin of energy of the microquasar model is rotation energy of a Kerr black hole with a mass of $``$ 10 $`M_{}`$. Radiation likely deviates from spherical symmetry because of the rotation.

In fact, we have pointed out (Totani 1998a) that the energy transfer between protons and electrons may be a quite inefficient process and strong afterglow of GRBs in TeV range may exist by synchrotron radiation of protons accelerated up to $`10^{2021}`$ eV. The VHE bursts beyond 10 TeV suggested by the Tibet and HEGRA experiments may also be explained by the proton synchrotron radiation. However, in the previous work we have considered the afterglow phase, i.e., the external shock generated by collisions of ejected matter and ambient interstellar matter. In this case, the cooling time scale of such protons is about a few days and hence the afterglow model cannot explain the observations of the two detectors showing a burst-like time structure of $``$ 10 seconds. These VHE emissions are coincident in time with keV–MeV GRBs (Amenomori et al. 1996; Padilla et al. 1998), and should be explained by internal shocks rather than external shocks. Here we present an internal shock model which can explain the observed VHE emission by proton synchrotron as well as the ordinary keV–MeV emission by electron synchrotron.

Suppose that the total energy $`E`$ is isotropically emitted during a time interval $`T=10T_{10}`$ sec which is the typical duration of GRBs, and this energy is converted into kinetic energy of relativistic bulk motion with a Lorentz factor of $`\gamma =300\gamma _{300}`$. As discussed above, we consider a typical case with $`E=10^{56}E_{56}`$ erg. The following analysis is not affected by the unknown beaming factor if we scale the total energy appropriately. If the Lorentz factor has fluctuations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma \gamma `$, faster ejecta will catch up with slower ejecta at

$$R\gamma ^2T=2.7\times 10^{16}\gamma _{300}^2T_{10}\mathrm{cm}.$$
(1)   
(We use the natural units of $`c=\mathrm{}=1`$.) Therefore the energy density of internal shocks can be estimated as $`\rho _{\mathrm{lab}}E/\left(4\pi R^2T\right)`$ at the laboratory frame. The restframe energy density $`\rho _{\mathrm{rest}}\rho _{\mathrm{lab}}/\gamma ^2`$ is then given as

$$\rho _{\mathrm{rest}}\frac{E}{4\pi R^2T\gamma ^2}=4\times 10^5E_{56}\gamma _{300}^6T_{10}^3\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3.$$
(2)   
We assume that there is a magnetic field which is nearly in equipartition with this energy density, i.e.,

$$B=3.2\times 10^3\xi _B^{1/2}E_{56}^{1/2}\gamma _{300}^3T_{10}^{3/2}\mathrm{Gauss},$$
(3)   
where $`\xi _B`$ is a parameter of order unity for degree of equipartition between magnetic fields and shock heated matter.

The most efficient energy loss process of protons or electrons would be synchrotron radiation. The photon energy of proton synchrotron in observer’s frame is given by $`\epsilon _\gamma =\epsilon _p^2eB/\left(m_p^3\gamma \right)`$, where $`\epsilon _p`$ is the proton energy in the observer’s frame. Therefore, if the observed 10 TeV gamma-rays are proton synchrotron, the energy of parent protons must be

$$\epsilon _p=3.6\times 10^{20}\left(\frac{\epsilon _\gamma }{10\mathrm{T}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}}\right)^{1/2}\gamma _{300}^2\xi _B^{1/4}E_{56}^{1/4}T_{10}^{3/4}\mathrm{eV},$$
(4)   
which is just the energy scale of the UHECRs observed on the Earth. It has been known that physical quantities of GRBs allow protons to be accelerated to such high energy when $`E10^{51}`$ erg (Waxman 1995; Vietri 1995). We are now considering a much more energetic case and we have to check whether protons are accelerated to $`10^{20}`$ eV in the present model. The acceleration time of Fermi acceleration is roughly given by the gyroperiod, $`2\pi \eta r_L`$, where $`r_L=m_p\gamma _p/\left(eB\right)`$ is the Larmor radius of protons, $`\gamma _p=\epsilon _p/\left(m_p\gamma \right)`$ the Lorentz factor of protons in the shock restframe, and $`\eta `$ a parameter of order unity (e.g., de Jager et al. 1996). The acceleration limit is given by $`2\pi \eta r_L=R/\gamma `$, where $`R/\gamma `$ is the expansion time measured in the shock restframe. (The shell thickness measured in the shell frame is also given by $`T\gamma R/\gamma `$, and the confinement condition is also satisfied automatically.) Hence, the maximum proton energy is given by

$$\epsilon _p=4.1\times 10^{21}\eta ^1\gamma _{300}^1\xi _B^{1/2}E_{56}^{1/2}T_{10}^{1/2}\mathrm{eV}.$$
(5)   
Proton acceleration is also limited by synchrotron cooling, i.e., $`2\pi \eta r_L=t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$, where $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}=6\pi m_p^3/\left(\sigma _Tm_e^2B^2\gamma _p\right)`$ is the synchrotron cooling time at the shock rest. This suggests that the maximum energy achieved by proton acceleration is

$$\epsilon _p=4.4\times 10^{20}\eta ^{1/2}\xi _B^{1/4}E_{56}^{1/4}\gamma _{300}^{5/2}T_{10}^{3/4}\mathrm{eV}.$$
(6)   
This energy is higher than that corresponding to 10 TeV synchrotron photons (see eq. 4), and hence proton synchrotron radiation extends to $``$ 10 TeV range. In fact, the maximum photon energy of synchrotron emission is determined only by fundamental constants independently of $`B`$, if the maximum particle energy is constrained by synchrotron cooling. For electron synchrotron, the maximum photon energy is given by $`25\eta ^1\gamma \left(\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)^1`$ MeV (de Jager et al. 1996), and that for proton synchrotron is higher than this by a factor of $`\left(m_p/m_e\right)`$, where $`\theta `$ is the pitch angle of particles along the direction of magnetic fields. By using $`\mathrm{sin}\theta =\pi /4=0.785`$ for isotropic particle distribution, the maximum photon energy of proton synchrotron is $`18\eta ^1\gamma _{300}`$ TeV. Since this maximum energy is quite model-independent and $`\eta `$ is likely larger than 1 (de Jager et al. 1996), we can infer the Lorentz factor of GRBs from the observed maximum energy of VHE gamma-rays. The energy threshold (50% trigger efficiency) of the HEGRA AIROBICC array is 16 (25) TeV (Padilla et al. 1998), and hence we obtain a lower limit of $`\gamma \stackrel{>}{}300\eta `$ and likely $`\stackrel{>}{}500\eta `$.

It should be noted that the maximum proton energy is determined by the synchrotron cooling constraint rather than the expansion time. This suggests that protons around the maximum energy will effectively lose their energy in GRBs and hence significant fraction of energy carried by protons will be converted into 10 TeV photons. Such VHE emission would be much more energetic than keV–MeV emission by electrons, giving a natural explanation for the VHE bursts observed by the two experiments. In fact, the cooling time of protons for an observer is given by

$`t_{\mathrm{cool},\mathrm{obs}}={\displaystyle \frac{t_{\mathrm{cool}}}{2\gamma }}=0.62\left({\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon _\gamma }{10\mathrm{T}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}}}\right)^{1/2}`$   
$`\times \gamma _{300}^4\xi _B^{3/4}E_{56}^{3/4}T_{10}^{9/4}\mathrm{sec},`$ (7)   
which is sufficiently short to explain the time structure of the observed TeV bursts with the time scale of $``$ 10 sec.

Next we consider whether electrons in this model can explain the ordinary keV–MeV GRBs. The photon energy of electron synchrotron in observer’s frame is given by

$$\epsilon _\gamma =\frac{\gamma \gamma _e^2eB}{m_e}=1.0\left(\frac{\gamma _e}{\gamma }\right)^2\xi _B^{1/2}E_{56}^{1/2}T_{10}^{3/2}\mathrm{keV},$$
(8)   
where $`\gamma _e`$ is the electron Lorentz factor measured in the shock frame. If the energy transfer from protons to electrons is inefficient, which is the case we are now considering, the minimum Lorentz factor of electrons is a direct consequence of initial bulk motion and hence $`\gamma _e\gamma `$. Observationally the lower bound of energy range of GRBs is a few keV, and our model naturally gives this lower bound. Electrons are also accelerated to higher energies and such electrons explain the higher energy gamma-rays extending up to MeV–GeV. As is done for protons above, we can estimate the maximum energy of electrons assuming that the acceleration time is $`2\pi \eta r_L`$. The maximum electron energy is determined by the synchrotron cooling constraint and hence the maximum photon energy of synchrotron is given by the formula:

$`\epsilon _{\gamma ,\mathrm{max}}`$ $`=`$ $`25\eta ^1\gamma \left(\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)^1\mathrm{MeV}`$ (9)   
$`=`$ $`9.5\eta ^1\gamma _{300}\mathrm{GeV}.`$ (10)   
This is consistent with the observation of some bright GRBs extending to the GeV range (Hurley 1996). \[Proton synchrotron may also contribute (Totani 1998a) to the GeV range gamma-ray emission, especially for the long duration GeV emission observed for GRB940217 (Hurley et al. 1994).\] The cooling time of electrons for an observer is written as:

$`t_{\mathrm{cool},\mathrm{obs}}={\displaystyle \frac{t_{\mathrm{cool}}}{2\gamma }}=1.36\times 10^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon _\gamma }{10\mathrm{k}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}}}\right)^{1/2}`$   
$`\times \gamma _{300}^4\xi _B^{3/4}E_{56}^{3/4}T_{10}^{9/4}\mathrm{msec},`$ (11)   
which is near the shortest time variability observed in GRBs ($``$ msec). Hence we can interpret the msec time scale of variability as synchrotron cooling time of electrons. This hypothesis predicts that the time scale of variability changes with photon energy as $`\epsilon _\gamma ^{1/2}`$, which can be tested by existing data.

We have shown that the recent observations of 10 TeV gamma-rays from some GRBs can be explained quite well if protons carry much larger energy than electrons and protons are accelerated up to $`10^{2021}`$ eV. Furthermore, electron synchrotron radiation in our model naturally gives the correct energy range and time variability of the ordinary keV–MeV gamma-rays of GRBs. It seems quite difficult to explain such strong emission of 10 TeV gamma-rays by other radiation processes and hence the observations of the two independent experimental groups suggest that protons in GRBs are actually accelerated up to the energy scale of the UHECRs observed on the Earth. The flux of UHECRs is difficult to estimate theoretically because the escape fraction of such protons from GRBs is poorly known and the lifetime of UHECRs in the intergalactic space drastically changes around $`10^{20}`$ eV. This is known as the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff (Greisen 1966; Zatsepin & Kuzmin 1966), which is due to the photopion production by the interaction between UHECRs and the 2.7K cosmic microwave background radiation. The lifetime is about $`\tau _{\mathrm{CR}}10^8`$ yrs for protons with energy of $`2\times 10^{20}`$ eV (Berezinskiĭ et al. 1990), corresponding to a horizon for UHECRs at $`30`$ Mpc. However, because of the large total energy of $`10^{56}b^1`$ erg for one GRB, where $`b=4\pi /\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the beaming factor, it can be concluded that the production rate of UHECRs in GRBs is sufficiently large to explain the observed UHECR flux above $`10^{20}`$ eV. In fact, we can calculate the energy production of UHECRs per one GRB required to explain the observed UHECR flux as

$`E_{\mathrm{CR}}=2\times 10^{54}b^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{\mathrm{CR}}}{7\times 10^{21}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3}}\right)`$   
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{\tau _{\mathrm{CR}}}{10^8\mathrm{yr}}}\right)^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{R_{\mathrm{GRB}}}{10^9b\mathrm{yr}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^3}}\right)^1\mathrm{erg},`$ (12)   
where $`\rho _{\mathrm{CR}}`$ is the energy density of UHECRs deduced from the observed UHECR flux (Yoshida and Dai 1998), and $`R_{\mathrm{GRB}}`$ the present-day rate density of GRBs (Totani 1997; 1998b). If the total energy liberated by one GRB is $`10^{56}b^1`$ erg, UHECR production with $`E_{\mathrm{CR}}10^{54}b^1`$ erg would be quite reasonable and hence we conclude that the 10 TeV gamma-rays observed by the Tibet and HEGRA groups give a strong support for the hypothesis that UHECRs are produced by GRBs.

The author would like to thank an anonymous referee for useful and constructive comments. He has been supported by the Research Fellowships of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists, and the Grant-in-Aid for the Scientific Research Fund (No. 3730) of the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture of Japan.