TeV–PeV Neutrinos from Low-Power Gamma-Ray Burst Jets inside Stars

Abstract

We study high-energy neutrino production in collimated jets inside progenitors of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and supernovae, considering both collimation and internal shocks. We obtain simple, useful constraints, using the often overlooked point that shock acceleration of particles is ineffective at radiation-mediated shocks. Classical GRBs may be too powerful to produce high-energy neutrinos inside stars, which is consistent with IceCube nondetections. We find that ultralong GRBs avoid such constraints and detecting the TeV signal will support giant progenitors. Predictions for lowpower GRB classes including low-luminosity GRBs can be consistent with the astrophysical neutrino background that IceCube may detect, with a spectral steepening around PeV. The models can be tested with future GRB monitors.PACS numbers: 95.85. Ry, 97.60.Bw, 98.70.Rz Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to originate from relativistic jets launched at the death of massive stars. Associations with core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) have provided strong evidence for the GRB-CCSN relationship [1]. But, there remain many important questions. What makes the GRB-CCSN connection? How universal is it? What is the central engine and progenitor of GRBs? How are jets launched and accelerated? Observationally, it is not easy to probe physics inside a star with photons until the jet breaks out and the photons leave the system. This is always the case if the jet is "chocked" rather than "successful" [2]; that is, the jet stalls inside the star, where the electromagnetic signal is unobservable. Such failed GRBs may be much more common than GRBs (whose true rate is ∼ 10 −3 of that of all CCSNe), and CCSNe driven by mildly relativistic jets may make up a few present of all CCSNe [3][4][5].Recent observations suggest interesting diversity in the GRB population. "Low-power GRBs" such as lowluminosity (LL) GRBs [3,6,7] and ultralong (UL) GRBs [8,9] have longer durations (∼ 10 3 -10 4 s) compared to that of classical long GRBs, suggesting different GRB classes and larger progenitors. While they were largely missed in previous observations, they are important for the total energy budget and the GRB-CCSN connection.Neutrinos and gravitational waves (GWs) can present special opportunities to address the above issues. In particular, IceCube is powerful enough to see high-energy (HE) neutrinos at 1 TeV [10] and has reported the first detections of cosmic PeV neutrinos [11]. Efficient HE neutrino production inside a star has been proposed assuming shock acceleration of cosmic rays (CRs) [12][13][14], and investigated by a lot of authors, since their detection allows us to study the GRB-CCSN connection [13,15], joint searches with GWs [16], neutrino mixing including the matter effect [17], the nature of GRB progenitors [18] and so on. However, IceCube has not detected neutrinos from GRBs, putting limits on this scenario as well as the classical prompt emission scenario [19,20]. It also constrains orphan neutrinos from a CCSN [21].In this work, we consider HE ne...

High-energy neutrino follow-up search of gravitational wave event GW150914 with ANTARES and IceCube

“…For example, typical GRB isotropic-equivalent energies are ∼ 10 51 erg for long and ∼ 10 49 erg for short GRBs [52]. The total energy radiated in high-energy neutrinos in the case of GRBs can be comparable [53][54][55][56][57] or in some cases much greater [58,59] than the high-energy electromagnetic emission. There is little reason, however, to expect an associated GRB for a binary black hole merger (see, nevertheless, [60]).…”

Implications ofFermi-LAT observations on the origin of IceCube neutrinos

“…Thus we do not constrain the neutrino production when the jet is still deep inside the GRB progenitor (Mészáros & Waxman 2001). Murase & Ioka (2013) find that low-power jets inside progenitors of GRBs may produce higher flux of TeV-PeV neutrinos. It would be important to measure the emissivity in the universe by more observations of these "low power GRBs".…”

“…This is also smaller than required, although the comparison is not straightforward because these 215 GRBs include not only those detected by GBM but also the other detectors. Thus we reach the conclusion that GRB neutrinos may not account for the IC detected neutrinos (though the other GRB neutrino models that cannot be constrained by the neutrino-γ-ray connection may still work (Murase & Ioka 2013)). …”

“…By assuming Galactic origin, the IC detected neutrinos have been used to constrain the Galactic CR sources ). On the other hand, extragalactic sources, e.g., gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) Murase & Ioka 2013), active galactic nuclei (AGNs) (Stecker 2013;Murase et al 2014), and star forming galaxies (He et al 2013;Tamborra et al 2014) have been discussed, as well as extragalactic diffuse neutrinos due to CR propagation in cosmic background photons (Laha et al 2013;Roulet et al 2013;Kalashev et al 2013). The IC detection, assuming extragalactic origin, has been used to constrain the extragalactic CR source physics, e.g., the CR spectrum , the production rate density (Katz et al 2013), and the physical condition of the CR accelerators (Winter 2013).…”

Astrophysical origin of high-energy cosmic neutrinos

“…Low Lorentz factors allow efficient neutrino production, and a calculation apparently matches the IceCube spectral excess [56][57][58] without contradicting single source limits [59]. In addition, although radiation constraints forbid efficient CR acceleration in powerful hidden jets inside a star, low-power GRBs are favorable as sources of orphan and precursor neutrinos [58]. Ultralong GRBs, if they come from blue super-giants (but see discussion in Ref.…”