The AMANDA search for high energy neutrinos from gamma-ray bursts

If GRBs accelerate protons as well as electrons, they may be the source of the highest energy cosmic rays. Detection of neutrinos from GRBs would confirm hadronic acceleration. AMANDA uses the Antarctic icecap as a Cherenkov medium for detecting such high energy neutrinos. We searched data recorded during 1997 for neutrinos coincident with northern hemisphere GRBs detected by BATSE. BATSE provides the time and location information that reduces the background of atmospheric neutrinos from which the high energy neutrinos must be separated. Quality cuts reduce the number of misreconstructed atmospheric muon tracks, resulting in a nearly background-free search. The current search result, based on one year of data, is consistent with no signal and we place an upper limit on the neutrino flux from GRBs.