High Energy Neutrinos from Cosmological Gamma-Ray Burst Fireballs

Observations suggest that g-ray bursts (GRBs) are produced by the dissipation of the kinetic energy of a relativistic fireball. We show that a large fraction, $10%, of the fireball energy is expected to be converted by photomeson production to a burst of ,1014 eV neutrinos. A km2 neutrino detector would observe at least several tens of events per year correlated with GRBs, and test for neutrino properties (e.g., flavor oscillations, for which upward moving t’s would be a unique signature, and coupling to gravity) with an accuracy many orders of magnitude better than is currently possible. [S0031-9007(97)02796-8]