# Search for a possible space-time correlation between high energy neutrinos and gamma-ray bursts

## 1 Neutrino astronomy with MACRO

Besides high energy gamma ray production resulting from $`\pi ^0`$ decay, astrophysical beam dump models predict neutrino emission from $`\pi ^\pm `$ decay. Mesons are produced by accelerated protons interacting with matter or photons in an accretion disk (Gaisser Gaisser (1995)). The discovery of TeV gamma-ray emissions has enhanced the potential possibilities of this mechanism and the possible existence of such sources, but energies are not high enough to esclude syncroton radiation or bremsstrahlung and inverse Compton production mechanisms. Neglecting photon absorbtion, it is expected that neutrino fluxes are almost equal to gamma ray ones and that the spectrum has the typical form due to the Fermi acceleration mechanism: $`\frac{dN}{dE}E^{2.0÷2.2}`$. Neutrinos produced in atmospheric cascades are background to the search for astrophysical neutrinos for energies $`10`$ TeV. In fact, atmospheric neutrinos have a softer spectrum than astrophysical neutrinos, since at energies $`100`$ GeV the decay length of mesons in the atmosphere becomes longer than atmospheric depth and the spectrum steepens (differential spectral index $`\gamma `$ 3.7). GRBs are possible sources of high energy $`\nu `$s: in the fireball scenario the beam dump mechanism can lead to $`\nu `$ emission (Halzen Halzen (1996), Waxman Bahcall (1997)). The trancience of the GRB emission, even though constrains the maximum neutrino energy to $`10^{19}`$ eV, improves GRB association with measured neutrino events in underground detectors using arrival directions and times, even though expected fluxes are much lower than atmospheric $`\nu `$ background.

The MACRO detector, located in the Hall B of the Gran Sasso underground laboratories, with a surface of $`76.6\times 12`$ m<sup>2</sup> and a height of 9 m, can indirectly detect neutrinos using a system of $`600`$ ton of liquid scintillator to measure the time of flight of particles (resolution $`500`$ ps) and $`20000`$ m<sup>2</sup> of streamer tubes for tracking (angular resolution better than 1 and pointing accuracy checked using moon shadow detection (Ambrosio 1998a )). The time of flight technique allows the discrimination between downward-going atmospheric muons and upward-going events produced in the rock below (average atmospheric neutrino energy $`E_\nu 100`$ GeV) and inside ($`E_\nu 4`$ GeV) the detector by neutrinos which have crossed the Earth. Between $`31\times 10^6`$ atmospheric muons, a sample of 909 upward-going muons is selected with an automated analysis. The data taking has begun since March 1989 with the incomplete detector (Ahlen macro95 (1995)) and since April 1994 with the full detector (Ambrosio 1998b ). In our convention $`1/\beta =\mathrm{\Delta }Tc/L`$, calculated from the measured time of flight $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ and the track length between the scintillator layers, is $`1`$ for downward-going muons and $`1`$ for upward-going muons. Events with $`1.25<1/\beta <0.75`$ are selected.

We look for a statistically significant excess of $`\nu `$ events in the direction of known $`\gamma `$ and $`X`$-ray sources (a list of 40 selected sources, 129 sources of the $`2^{nd}`$ Egret Catalogue, 2233 Batse GRB, 220 SN remnants, 7 sources with $`\gamma `$ emission above 1 TeV) with respect to fluctuations of the atmospheric $`\nu `$ background. The expected background from atmospheric $`\nu `$s is calculated in declination bands of $`\pm 5^{}`$ around the declination of the source mixing for 100 times local coordinates and times of upward-going $`\mu `$s. We calculate flux limits in half-cones of $`3^{}`$ taking into account reduction factors due to the signal fraction lost outside the cone (which depends on $`\nu `$ spectrum, kinematics of CC interaction, $`\mu `$ propagation in the rock, MACRO angular resolution). We do not find any signal evidence from known sources or of clustering of events (we measure 89 clusters of $`3`$ events and expect 81.2 of them in a cone of $`3^{}`$). Muon flux limits for some sources are: 2.5 for Crab Nebula, 5.6 for MRK421, 3.71 for Her X-1, 0.45 for Vela Pulsar, 0.65 for SN1006 in units of $`\times 10^{14}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>. For most of the considered sources MACRO gives the best flux limits compared to other underground experiments.

## 2 Space-time correlations between GRBs and upward-going muons

We look for correlations with 2233 GRBs in the Batse Catalogs 3B and 4B (Meegan Meegan (1997)) collected since 21 Apr. 1991 to 5 Oct. 1998 and 894 of the 909 upward-going muons detected by MACRO during this period (see Fig. 1). Considering Batse angular accuracy, we estimate that a half-cone of $`20^{}`$ ($`10^{}`$) contains 99.8$`\%`$ (96.8$`\%`$) of $`\nu `$ sources (if GRB sources are $`\nu `$ sources, too). The same percentages of upward-going muons are contained in these half-cones from the GRB sources. As a matter of fact, we calculate via Monte Carlo the fraction of signal lost, which depends on the $`\nu `$ spectral index, multiple scattering of muons during propagation in the rock and MACRO angular resolution. Using various cone apertures, we estimate that this fraction is negligible for $`10^{}`$.

The area for upgoing muon detection in the direction of the GRBs averaged over all the bursts is 119 m<sup>2</sup>. Its value is small because MACRO is sensitive to neutrinos only in the lower hemisphere and because it was incomplete in the period 1991-1994. We find no statistically significant correlation between neutrino event and GRB directions and detection times. As shown in Fig. 2, we find no events in a window of $`\pm 200`$ inside $`10^{}`$ from GRB directions and 1 event inside $`20^{}`$, which was measured after 39.4 s from the Batse GRB of 22 Sep. 1995 (4B 950922). For this burst the radius of the positional error box in the Batse catalog is 3.86, much smaller than the angular distance of 17.6 at which we find the neutrino event. The expected number of atmospheric $`\nu `$ events is computed with the delayed coincidence technique. We expect 0.035 (0.075) events in $`10^{}`$ ($`20^{}`$). The corresponding upper limits (90$`\%`$ c.l.) for the upward-going muon flux are $`0.87\times 10^9`$ cm<sup>-2</sup> ($`1.44\times 10^9`$ cm<sup>-2</sup>) upward-going muons per average burst. These limits exclude an extreme cosmic string-type model reported in (Halzen Halzen (1996)), which results in $`10^1\mu `$ cm<sup>-2</sup>, while according to a fireball scenario model in (Waxman Bahcall (1997)), a burst at a distance of 100 Mpc producing $`0.4\times 10^{51}`$ erg in neutrinos of around $`10^{14}`$ eV would produce $`6\times 10^{11}`$ cm<sup>-2</sup> upward-going muons.

(\*) The MACRO Collaboration   

M. Ambrosio<sup>12</sup>, R. Antolini<sup>7</sup>, C. Aramo<sup>7,n</sup>, G. Auriemma<sup>14,a</sup>, A. Baldini<sup>13</sup>, G. C. Barbarino<sup>12</sup>, B. C. Barish<sup>4</sup>, G. Battistoni<sup>6,b</sup>, R. Bellotti<sup>1</sup>, C. Bemporad <sup>13</sup>, E. Bernardini <sup>2,7</sup>, P. Bernardini <sup>10</sup>, H. Bilokon <sup>6</sup>, V. Bisi <sup>16</sup>, C. Bloise <sup>6</sup>, C. Bower <sup>8</sup>, S. Bussino<sup>14</sup>, F. Cafagna<sup>1</sup>, M. Calicchio<sup>1</sup>, D. Campana <sup>12</sup>, M. Carboni<sup>6</sup>, M. Castellano<sup>1</sup>, S. Cecchini<sup>2,c</sup>, F. Cei <sup>11,13</sup>, V. Chiarella<sup>6</sup>, B. C. Choudhary<sup>4</sup>, S. Coutu <sup>11,o</sup>, L. De Benedictis<sup>1</sup>, G. De Cataldo<sup>1</sup>, H. Dekhissi <sup>2,17</sup>, C. De Marzo<sup>1</sup>, I. De Mitri<sup>9</sup>, J. Derkaoui <sup>2,17</sup>, M. De Vincenzi<sup>14,e</sup>, A. Di Credico <sup>7</sup>, O. Erriquez<sup>1</sup>, C. Favuzzi<sup>1</sup>, C. Forti<sup>6</sup>, P. Fusco<sup>1</sup>, G. Giacomelli <sup>2</sup>, G. Giannini<sup>13,f</sup>, N. Giglietto<sup>1</sup>, M. Giorgini <sup>2</sup>, M. Grassi <sup>13</sup>, L. Gray <sup>7</sup>, A. Grillo <sup>7</sup>, F. Guarino <sup>12</sup>, P. Guarnaccia<sup>1</sup>, C. Gustavino <sup>7</sup>, A. Habig <sup>3</sup>, K. Hanson <sup>11</sup>, R. Heinz <sup>8</sup>, Y. Huang<sup>4</sup>, E. Iarocci <sup>6,g</sup>, E. Katsavounidis<sup>4</sup>, E. Kearns <sup>3</sup>, H. Kim<sup>4</sup>, S. Kyriazopoulou<sup>4</sup>, E. Lamanna <sup>14</sup>, C. Lane <sup>5</sup>, D. S. Levin <sup>11</sup>, P. Lipari <sup>14</sup>, N. P. Longley <sup>4,l</sup>, M. J. Longo <sup>11</sup>, F. Maaroufi <sup>2,17</sup>, G. Mancarella <sup>10</sup>, G. Mandrioli <sup>2</sup>, S. Manzoor <sup>2,m</sup>, A. Margiotta Neri <sup>2</sup>, A. Marini <sup>6</sup>, D. Martello <sup>10</sup>, A. Marzari-Chiesa <sup>16</sup>, M. N. Mazziotta<sup>1</sup>, C. Mazzotta <sup>10</sup>, D. G. Michael<sup>4</sup>, S. Mikheyev <sup>4,7,h</sup>, L. Miller <sup>8</sup>, P. Monacelli <sup>9</sup>, T. Montaruli<sup>1</sup>, M. Monteno <sup>16</sup>, S. Mufson <sup>8</sup>, J. Musser <sup>8</sup>, D. Nicoló<sup>13,d</sup>, C. Orth <sup>3</sup>, G. Osteria <sup>12</sup>, M. Ouchrif <sup>2,17</sup>, O. Palamara <sup>10</sup>, V. Patera <sup>6,g</sup>, L. Patrizii <sup>2</sup>, R. Pazzi <sup>13</sup>, C. W. Peck<sup>4</sup>, S. Petrera <sup>9</sup>, P. Pistilli <sup>14,e</sup>, V. Popa <sup>2,i</sup>, A. Rainò<sup>1</sup>, A. Rastelli <sup>2,7</sup>, J. Reynoldson <sup>7</sup>, F. Ronga <sup>6</sup>, C. Satriano <sup>14,a</sup>, L. Satta <sup>6,g</sup>, E. Scapparone <sup>7</sup>, K. Scholberg <sup>3</sup>, A. Sciubba <sup>6,g</sup>, P. Serra-Lugaresi <sup>2</sup>, M. Severi <sup>14</sup>, M. Sioli <sup>2</sup>, M. Sitta <sup>16</sup>, P. Spinelli<sup>1</sup>, M. Spinetti <sup>6</sup>, M. Spurio <sup>2</sup>, R. Steinberg<sup>5</sup>, J. L. Stone <sup>3</sup>, L. R. Sulak <sup>3</sup>, A. Surdo <sup>10</sup>, G. Tarlè<sup>11</sup>, V. Togo <sup>2</sup>, D. Ugolotti <sup>2</sup>, M. Vakili <sup>15</sup>, C. W. Walter <sup>3</sup>, and R. Webb <sup>15</sup>.

1. Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Bari and INFN, 70126 Bari, Italy   
2. Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Bologna and INFN, 40126 Bologna, Italy   
3. Physics Department, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA   
4. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA   
5. Department of Physics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA   
6. Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati dell’INFN, 00044 Frascati (Roma), Italy   
7. Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso dell’INFN, 67010 Assergi (L’Aquila), Italy   
8. Depts. of Physics and of Astronomy, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA   
9. Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università dell’Aquila and INFN, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy   
10. Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Lecce and INFN, 73100 Lecce, Italy   
11. Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA   
12. Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Napoli and INFN, 80125 Napoli, Italy   
13. Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Pisa and INFN, 56010 Pisa, Italy   
14. Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Roma “La Sapienza” and INFN, 00185 Roma, Italy   
15. Physics Department, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA   
16. Dipartimento di Fisica Sperimentale dell’Università di Torino and INFN, 10125 Torino, Italy   
17. L.P.T.P., Faculty of Sciences, University Mohamed I, B.P. 524 Oujda, Morocco   
$`a`$ Also Università della Basilicata, 85100 Potenza, Italy   
$`b`$ Also INFN Milano, 20133 Milano, Italy   
$`c`$ Also Istituto TESRE/CNR, 40129 Bologna, Italy   
$`d`$ Also Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 56010 Pisa, Italy   
$`e`$ Also Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tre, Roma, Italy   
$`f`$ Also Università di Trieste and INFN, 34100 Trieste, Italy   
$`g`$ Also Dipartimento di Energetica, Università di Roma, 00185 Roma, Italy   
$`h`$ Also Institute for Nuclear Research, Russian Academy of Science, 117312 Moscow, Russia   
$`i`$ Also Institute for Space Sciences, 76900 Bucharest, Romania   
$`l`$ Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081, USA   
$`m`$ RPD, PINSTECH, P.O. Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan   
$`n`$ Also INFN Catania, 95129 Catania, Italy   
$`o`$ Also Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16801, USA