Kleinnishina effects in the prompt and extended high-energy gamma-ray emission of gamma-ray bursts

摘要

Prompt and extended high-energy (> 100 MeV) gamma-ray emission has been observed from more than ten gamma-ray bursts by Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). Such emission is likely to be produced by synchrotron radiation of electrons accelerated in internal or external shocks. We show that IC scattering of these electrons with synchrotron photons are typically in the KleinNishina (KN) regime. For the prompt emission, the KN effect can suppress the IC component and as a result, one single component is seen in some strong bursts. The KN inverse-Compton cooling may also affect the low-energy electron number distribution and hence result in a hard low-energy synchrotron photon spectrum. During the afterglow, KN effect makes the Compton-Y parameter generally less than 1 in the first seconds for a wide range of parameter space. Furthermore, we suggest that the KN effect can explain the somewhat faster-than-expected decay of the early-time high-energy emission observed in GRB090510 and GRB090902B.