Neutrino astronomy and gamma-ray bursts.pdfVIP

a r X i v : a s t r o - p h / 0 7 0 1 1 7 0 v 1 7 J a n 2 0 0 7 Neutrino astronomy and γ-ray bursts? By Eli Waxman Physics Faculty, Weizmann Inst. of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel The construction of large volume detectors of high energy, 1 TeV, neutrinos is mainly driven by the search for extra-Galactic neutrino sources. The existence of such sources is implied by observations of ultra-high energy, ≥ 1019 eV, cosmic- rays, the origin of which is a mystery. In this lecture I briefly discuss the expected extra-Galactic neutrino signal and the current state of the experimental efforts. Neutrino emission from γ?ray bursts (GRBs), which are likely sources of both high energy protons and neutrinos, is discussed in some detail. The detection of the predicted GRB neutrino signal, which may become possible in the coming few years, will allow one to identify the sources of ultra-high energy cosmic-rays and to resolve open questions related to the underlying physics of GRB models. Moreover, detection of GRB neutrinos will allow one to test for neutrino properties (e.g. flavor oscillations and coupling to gravity) with an accuracy many orders of magnitude better than is currently possible. Keywords: gamma ray bursts, neutrinos, cosmic rays 1. Introduction The detection of MeV neutrinos from the Sun enabled direct observations of nu- clear reactions in the core of the Sun, as well as studies of fundamental neutrino properties (Bahcall 2005). Existing MeV neutrino ”telescopes” are also capable of detecting neutrinos from supernova explosions in our local Galactic neighborhood, at distances 100 kpc, such as supernova 1987A. The detection of neutrinos emit- ted by SN1987A provided a direct observation of the core collapse process and constraints on neutrino properties (Raffelt 2005). MeV neutrino detectors are unlikely to enable the detection of an extra-Galactic neutrino signal. In order to extend the distance accessible to neutrino astronomy to extra-Galactic scales, hig