THE FIRST LIMITS ON THE ULTRA-HIGH ENERGY NEUTRINO FLUENCE FROM GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

Abstract

We set the first limits on the ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrino fluence at energies greater than 10(9) GeV from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) based on data from the second flight of the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA). During the 31 day flight of ANITA-II, 26 GRBs were recorded by Swift or Fermi. Of these, we analyzed the 12 GRBs which occurred during quiet periods when the payload was away from anthropogenic activity. In a blind analysis, we observe 0 events on a total background of 0.0044 events in the combined prompt window for all 12 low-background bursts. We also observe 0 events from the remaining 14 bursts. We place a 90% confidence level limit on the E-4 prompt neutrino fluence between 10(8) GeV < E < 10(12) GeV of E-4 Phi = 2.5 x 10(17) GeV3 cm(-2) from GRB090107A. This is the first reported limit on the UHE neutrino fluence from GRBs above 10(9) GeV, and the strongest limit above 10(8) GeV.