The possibility of detecting Gamma-Ray Bursts ( GRBs ) in TeV energy range using large area muon detectors like AMANDA and Lake Baikal detector is examined .
These detectors can detect TeV energy photons by detecting the secondary muons created by the TeV photons in the Earth ’ s atmosphere .
We calculate the expected number of muons and the signal to square root of noise ratios in these detectors due to TeV gamma-rays from individual GRBs for various assumption on their luminosity , distance from the observer ( redshift ) , gamma-ray integral spectral index , maximum energy cutoff of the photon spectrum , and duration , including the effect of the absorption of TeV photons in the intergalactic infrared radiation background .
We also calculate the expected rate of detectable TeV-GRB events in these detectors using a recent determination of the luminosity and redshift distributions of the GRBs in the Universe .
For reasonable ranges of values of various parameters , we find about 1 event in 20 years in AMANDA ( and a similar number for BAIKAL ) , while the event rate can be significantly larger ( by factors of 10 or more depending on the area of the detector ) in the proposed next generation detectors such as ICECUBE .
Although , for the specific forms of the luminosity- and redshift distributions assumed , the average rate of expected detection is low , occasional nearby ( z \raise 1.29 pt \hbox { $ < $ \kern - 7.5 pt \raise - 4.73 pt \hbox { $ \sim $ } } 0.1 ) , high luminosity ( \raise 1.29 pt \hbox { $ > $ \kern - 7.5 pt \raise - 4.73 pt \hbox { $ \sim $ } } 10 ^ { 54 } { erg% } / { sec } ) , long duration ( > \sim 10 ’ s of seconds ) , and sufficiently hard spectrum ( gamma-ray integral spectral index < 1 ) GRBs can , however , be detected even by AMANDA .
Detection ( or even non-detection ) of TeV photons from GRBs in coincidence with satellite-borne detectors ( which detect mainly sub-MeV photons ) will be able to provide important new insights into the characteristics of GRBs and their emission mechanisms and , in addition , provide limits on the strength and spectrum of the intergalactic infrared background which affects the propagation of TeV photons from cosmological sources .