Fermi Limit on the Neutrino Flux from Gamma-ray Bursts

TL;DR

This paper uses Fermi gamma-ray observations to set limits on neutrino flux from gamma-ray bursts, indicating that detecting neutrinos from GRBs requires stacking over 130 events with IceCube.

Contribution

It introduces a method to constrain GRB neutrino emission using gamma-ray data, independent of unknown proton luminosity.

Findings

Neutrino flux from GRBs is limited to below ~20 GeV/m^2 per event.

IceCube needs to stack over 130 GRBs to detect one muon neutrino.

Gamma-ray observations constrain neutrino production in GRBs.

Abstract

If gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) produce high energy cosmic rays, neutrinos are expected to be generated in GRBs due to photo-pion productions. However we stress that the same process also generates electromagnetic (EM) emission induced by the production of secondary electrons and photons, and that the EM emission is expected to be correlated to the neutrino flux. Using the Fermi/LAT observational results on gamma-ray flux from GRBs, the GRB neutrino emission is limited to be below ~20 GeV/m^2 per GRB event on average, which is independent of the unknown GRB proton luminosity. This neutrino limit suggests that the full IceCube needs stacking more than 130 GRBs in order to detect one GRB muon neutrino.