Extra galactic sources of high energy neutrinos

The main goal of the construction of large volume, high energy neutrino telescopes is the detection of extra-Galactic neutrino sources. The existence of such sources is implied by observations of ultra-high energy, >10^{19} eV, cosmic-rays (UHECRs), the origin of which is a mystery. The observed UHECR flux sets an upper bound to the extra-Galactic high energy neutrino intensity, which implies that the detector size required to detect the signal in the energy range of 1 TeV to 1 PeV is >=1 giga-ton, and much larger at higher energy. Optical Cerenkov neutrino detectors, currently being constructed under ice and water, are expected to achieve 1 giga-ton effective volume for 1 TeV to 1 PeV neutrinos. Coherent radio Cerenkov detectors (and possibly large air-shower detectors) will provide the >> 1 giga-ton effective volume required for detection at ~10^{19} eV. Detection of high energy neutrinos associated with electromagnetically identified sources will allow to identify the sources of UHECRs, will provide a unique probe of the sources, which may allow to resolve open questions related to the underlying physics of models describing these powerful accelerators, and will provide information on fundamental neutrino properties.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; Summary of talk presented at the Nobel Symposium 129: Neutrino Physics, Sweden 200

Statistics of clustering of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and the number of their sources

Observation of clustering of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) suggests that they are emitted by compact sources. Assuming small deflection of UHECR during the propagation, the statistical analysis of clustering allows to estimate the spatial density of the sources, h, including those which have not yet been observed directly. When applied to astrophysical models involving extra-galactic sources, the estimate based on 14 events with energy E>10^{20} eV gives h ~ 6 X 10^{-3} Mps^{-3}. With increasing statistics, this estimate may lead to exclusion of the models which associate the production of UHECR with exceptional galaxies such as AGN, powerful radio-galaxies, dead quasars, and models based on gamma ray bursts.Comment: The version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett. Notations changed to conventional ones. The estimate of the effective GZK radius replaced by the result of numerical simulatio

TeV Neutrinos from Successful and Choked Gamma-Ray Bursts

Core collapse of massive stars resulting in a relativistic fireball jet which breaks through the stellar envelope is a widely discussed scenario for gamma-ray burst production. For very extended or slow rotating stars, the fireball may be unable to break through the envelope. Both penetrating and choked jets will produce, by photo-meson interactions of accelerated protons, a burst of neutrinos with energies in excess of 5 TeV while propagating in the envelope. The predicted flux, from both penetrating and chocked fireballs, should be easily detectable by planned cubic kilometer neutrino telescopes.Comment: Phys.Rev.Letters, in press, final version accepted 8/31/01 (orig. 3/17/01

Galactic Anisotropy as Signature of ``Top-Down'' Mechanisms of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays

We show that ``top-down'' mechanisms of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays which involve heavy relic particle-like objects predict Galactic anisotropy of highest energy cosmic rays at the level of minimum $\sim 20$. This anisotropy is large enough to be either observed or ruled out in the next generation of experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX. Final version appeared in Pisma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fi

High Energy Neutrinos from Astrophysical Sources: An Upper Bound

We show that cosmic-ray observations set a model-independent upper bound to the flux of high-energy, > 10^14 eV, neutrinos produced by photo-meson (or p-p) interactions in sources of size not much larger than the proton photo-meson (or pp) mean-free-path. The bound applies, in particular, to neutrino production by either AGN jets or GRBs. This upper limit is two orders of magnitude below the flux predicted in some popular AGN jet models, but is consistent with our predictions from GRB models. We discuss the implications of these results for future km^2 high-energy neutrino detectors.Comment: Added discussion showing bound cannot be evaded by invoking magnetic fields. Accepted Phys Rev

Maximum Likelihood Analysis of Clusters of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays

We present a numerical code designed to conduct a likelihood analysis for clusters of nucleons above 10**19 eV originating from discrete astrophysical sources such as powerful radio galaxies, gamma-ray bursts or topological defects. The code simulates the propagation of nucleons in a large-scale magnetic field and constructs the likelihood of a given observed event cluster as a function of the average time delay due to deflection in the magnetic field, the source activity time scale, the total fluence of the source, and the power law index of the particle injection spectrum. Other parameters such as the coherence length and the power spectrum of the magnetic field are also considered. We apply it to the three pairs of events above 4X10**19 eV recently reported by the Akeno Giant Air Shower Array (AGASA) experiment, assuming that these pairs were caused by nucleon primaries which originated from a common source. Although current data are too sparse to fully constrain each of the parameters considered, and/or to discriminate models of the origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, several tendencies are indicated. If the clustering suggested by AGASA is real, next generation experiments with their increased exposure should detect more than 10 particles per source over a few years and our method will put strong constraints on both the large-scale magnetic field parameters and the nature of these sources.Comment: 11 latex pages, 8 postscript figures included, uses revtex.sty in two-column format and epsf.sty. Submitted to Physical Review

Cosmological Origin for Cosmic Rays Above 101910^{19} eV

The cosmic ray spectrum at $10^{19}{\rm eV}-10^{20}{\rm eV}$, reported by the Fly's Eye and the AGASA experiments, is shown to be consistent with a cosmological distribution of sources of protons, with a power law generation spectrum ${\rm d}\ln N/{\rm d}\ln E=-2.3\pm0.5$ and energy production rate of $4.5\pm1.5\times10^{44}{\rm erg}\ {\rm Mpc}^{-3}\ {\rm yr}^{-1}$. The two events measured above $10^{20}{\rm eV}$ are not inconsistent with this model. Verifying the existence of a ``black-body cutoff'', currently observed with low significance, would require $\sim30$ observation-years with existing experiments, but only $\sim1$ year with the proposed $\sim5000\ {\rm km}^2$ detectors. For a cosmological source distribution, no anisotropy is expected in the angular distribution of events with energies up to $\sim5\times10^{19}{\rm eV}$.Comment: uuencoded gz-compressed postscript file, including 2 figures; To appear in the October 10 (1995) issue of the Ap. J. Letter

Neutrino signatures of the supernova - gamma ray burst relationship

We calculate the TeV-PeV neutrino fluxes of gamma-ray bursts associated with supernovae, based on the observed association between GRB 030329 and supernova SN 2003dh. The neutrino spectral flux distributions can test for possible delays between the supernova and the gamma-ray burst events down to much shorter timescales than what can be resolved with photons. As an illustrative example, we calculate the probability of neutrino induced muon and electron cascade events in a km scale under-ice detector at the South Pole, from the GRB 030329. Our calculations demonstrate that km scale neutrino telescopes are expected to detect signals that will allow to constrain supernova-GRB models.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.