Neutrinos and Nucleosynthesis in Gamma-Ray Burst Accretion Disks

Abstract

We calculate the nuclear composition of matter in accretion disks surrounding stellar mass black holes as are thought to accompany gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). We follow a mass element in the accretion disk starting at the point of nuclear dissociation and calculate the evolution of the electron fraction due to electron, positron, electron neutrino and electron antineutrino captures. We find that the neutronization of the disk material by electron capture can be reversed by neutrino interactions in the inner regions of disks with accretion rates of 1 M_solar/s and higher. For these cases the inner disk regions are optically thick to neutrinos, and so to estimate the emitted neutrino fluxes we find the surface of last scattering for the neutrinos (the equivalent of the proto-neutron star neutrinosphere) for each optically thick disk model. We also estimate the influence of neutrino interactions on the neutron-to-proton ratio in outflows from GRB accretion disks, and find it can be significant even when the disk is optically thin to neutrinos.