High-energy neutrino emission associated to γ-ray burst sources

It is very likely that γ-ray burst (GRB) sources efficiently accelerate protons up to relativistic energies. These protons, in turn, may interact with nucleons surrounding the GRB sources giving rise to neutral pion production and ultimately to high-energy photons. By the same hadronic chain, high-energy neutrinos are produced by charged pions and by kaons decay, as well as from decay of generated muons. Neutrinos can travel cosmological distances being much less absorbed than photons, thus providing a further tool for the investigation of the GRB sources. In the frame of a recently proposed hadronic model, we estimate the neutrino emission from GRB sources and calculate the neutrino fluxes at Earth as a function of the model parameters, both in the case of point-like and unresolved GRB sources. High-energy neutrinos can be detected by collecting the upward-going neutrino-induced muons produced through charge current interactions with the matter surrounding the detector. The detectability of the expected muon signal (calculated by properly taking into account neutrino absorption in Earth and high-energy muon propagation) is also extensively discussed by considering current and future experiment capabilities.