[NOTE ADDED: A reader forwarded a message that IceCube did not see any neutrinos with energies above 1 TeV = 1000 GeV from this GRB. Maybe this is not quite the final word (there would still be sensitivity, with some effort, to neutrinos in the 100 GeV – 1000 GeV range) but clearly the neutrino signal isn’t striking, and it is probably not there at all. But as I’ve suggested below, even a non-observation might have significant implications for the science; the question is, how many neutrinos would the standard speculations about how GRB’s work have led you to expect at IceCube? If a reader can provide that info, I’d appreciate that.]
The very recent report of a powerful and long-lived gamma-ray burst (GRB), and questions and remarks by my readers (thank you!), have motivated me, both as a scientist and a blogger, to try to understand whether we should have observed neutrinos from this GRB. This is forcing me to catch up on the related subjects of GRB’s, searches for high-energy neutrinos, and the highest-energy cosmic rays. I’m certainly not caught up yet; there are decades of research out there, and I’m quite far behind on developments over the past three or four years. But here are some of the basics that I believe I understand. Still, be cautious with the content of this post, both because I’m not an expert and because this is a very active area of research in which some fraction of the more speculative stuff will surely turn out to be wrong. I will try to refine this post with a more detailed and corrected article sometime later, perhaps once we know whether neutrinos from this GRB were or were not observed.
GRBs that last more than a few seconds are widely believed to be associated with an exceptional form of Type II (or “core-collapse”) supernova, though this is not known for certain. In these types of GRBs, there are (at least) two sources of photons (everything from gamma-rays to visible light to radio waves) and two sources of neutrinos. It is important not to confuse the different sources!
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