2023ApJ...947...84H

The observed hard TeV gamma-ray spectrum of the nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB) 190829A may challenge the conventional leptonic GRB afterglow model. It has been proposed that an ultra-high-energy (UHE; ${\varepsilon }_{{\rm{p}}}^{{\prime} }\sim {10}^{20}$ eV) proton population can be pre-accelerated by internal shocks in GRB jets. We study the possible signatures of the UHE protons embedded in the TeV afterglows when they escape the afterglow fireball. We show that the leptonic model can represent the observed multiwavelength lightcurves and spectral energy distributions of GRB 190829A by considering the uncertainties of the model parameters. Attributing the TeV gamma-ray afterglows to the emission of both the electron self-Compton scattering process and the UHE proton synchrotron radiations in the afterglow fireball, we obtain tentative upper limits of ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}{\varepsilon }_{{\rm{p}}}^{{\prime} }/\mathrm{eV}\sim 20.46$ and ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}{E}_{{\rm{p}},\mathrm{total}}/\mathrm{erg}\leqslant 50.75$, where E_p,total is the total energy of the proton population. The synchrotron radiations of the UHE protons should dominate the early TeV gamma-ray afterglows, implying that early observations are critical for revealing the UHE proton population.