Neutrino Event Rates from Gamma Ray Bursts

Abstract

We recalculate the diffuse flux of high energy neutrinos produced by Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) in the relativistic fireball model. Although we confirm that the average single burst produces only ~10^{-2} high energy neutrino events in a detector with 1 km^2 effective area, i.e. about 10 events per year, we show that the observed rate is dominated by burst-to-burst fluctuations which are very large. We find event rates that are expected to be larger by one order of magnitude, likely more, which are dominated by a few very bright bursts. This greatly simplifies their detection.

Comments: 14 pages, Latex2.09, uses aastex4.0 and epsf.sty, 3 postscript files. Minor revisions. To be published in ApJ Letters