| Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are brief, intense, isotropically-distributed explosions of extremely high energy electromagnetic radiation. GRBs are located at cosmological distances, some up to half way across the observable universe. According to the relativistic fireball model of GRBs, they are likely to be astrophysical sources of high energy neutrinos. These neutrinos are chargeless and nearly massless; therefore, they can reach the earth, undeflected and unabsorbed, from the furthest reaches of the universe. Occasionally, one of these neutrinos will interact in the ice or rock near the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) and produce a muon. AMANDA uses the ice shelf near the geographic South Pole as a Cherenkov medium for detecting such high energy muons. When a neutrino interacts near the detector, it produces a relativistic muon that emits Cerenkov radiation as it hurtles through the transparent ice. Muons are also produced by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere. Since only neutrinos can pass through the entire earth, AMANDA uses the earth as a filter, tagging upgoing events as authentic neutrino-induced muons and rejecting downgoing cosmic ray muons. Data recorded by AMANDA from 1997 through May of 2000 were searched for high energy neutrinos coincident with GRBs detected by the Burst and Transient Satellite Experiment (BATSE). Because both the time and position of the bursts are provided by the BATSE satellite, the cosmic ray muons and mis-reconstructed events from which the GRB neutrinos must be separated are greatly reduced. The analysis---including data handling, Monte Carlo simulations, background studies, cut optimization, neutrino search, and calculation of upper limits---is described here. The search result is currently consistent with no signal. |
