Dear reviewer, Thanks very much for your useful comments. Most of them have been implemented in new version of the paper that I attach. Here you have also some answers to your questions (look for the ">>"). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Report of Referee A -- LU10303/Achterberg ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a topical result and of interest to a wide readership so I think it deserves to be published in PRL. However there are a few changes that I think would make it a better paper and they are listed in the following paragraphs. The introduction needs to be more compelling in order to convince the people that are not normally following the subject that they should take a look. The first sentence could state (as can be found in the abstract for reference 5) that the flare under discussion was "much more luminous than any previous transient event observed in our Galaxy". That alone should make the case that looking for neutrino events from this source is not a priori hopeless. >> A sentence similar to the one you suggested has been added in the >> first paragraph. We also added a comment later on the possibility >> that SGRs are the sources of UHE cosmic rays. In the third paragraph of the introduction there is reference to three different sets of measurements and a line of argument that states that the source is non-thermal (ie has a high energy tail). I found this to be confusing and vague (eg "similar considerations apply ..."). The part about hardening of the power law below 10 keV before the flare seems out of place since it is so far away from the TeV scale we are concerned about. What is clear from reading the references is that four instruments (RHESSI, Swift/BAT, RXTE and Chandra) have been used, by three groups and they all suggest that there is a power-law component to the source spectrum. Why not just state it like that and argue that this means an important high energy component is suggested? >> This paragraph has been simplified according to your instructions. We also >> cite now a couple of papers which propose SGR flares as the source of the >> uhe cosmic rays (a couple of references added). The first complete paragraph on page 11 needs to be rewritten in a more linear way. It is really convoluted and confusing as it stands. If I understand the argument, one assumes a power law flux of photons hitting the earth and calculates with CORSIKA etc the number of muons that should be seen by AMANDA for a given power (gamma) and normalization (A_90). The fact that no muons are detected is then used to set a limit on A_90 depending on the value of gamma assumed. Meanwhile, in reference 10, the number of muons is calculated analytically and a power law gamma-ray spectrum with hard cut-off (at 200 or 500 TeV) is assumed. The non-detection of muons can rule out some of the candidate spectra in this paper. The first paragraph on page 11 talks about "the same energy limits as in ref [10]". Does this just mean that the power law spectra were cut off at 200 or 500 TeV and this changes the corresponding A_90? What about the effect of gamma-ray absorption on the interstellar medium? You say it is taken into account - here or in ref 10 or both? What does it do to the power law? There's a lot going on here for a single short paragraph. >> Yes. It is as you describe. We have changed it a bit for the sake >> of clarity. We avoid now to mention the attenuation in the CMB and >> ISRF in the same paragraph of the comparison with Halzen et >> al. since it was not taken into account in this reference (the >> effect using a 500 TeV cutoff comes basically from the ISRF, which >> is not too significant ~13% at 30 TeV, much lower for other energy >> ranges). Given the short length required for the paper we believe >> that a reference is enough given the small relevance of the effect. Perhaps a figure with integral flux vs energy would be helpful. At low energy, one could have the satellite measurements as points and at higher energies some AMANDA upper limits for different power law assumptions. Theoretical predictions (eg with different powers, normalizations and cutoff energies) can then be drawn as smooth curves and one can see clearly what is ruled out and what survives. (If you need the space you could omit figure 1 which is pretty bland and can be given as a formula.) >> We prefer to keep figure 1, since it is a key parameter to describe >> the of the detector. For different analysis (different quality >> cuts) the effective area changes, so it is important to show it in >> the paper. Actually, this plot is the first detailed simulation >> (with MC) of the effective area of AMANDA for gammas, which we >> think is quite relevant. Also, this plot can be used by any people >> convoluting it with a gamma flux to derive expected event rates >> from any model. The conclusions are a bit weak for something that is supposed to be so important as to merit a PRL. There is a claim that "underground (sic) neutrino arrays such as AMANDA and IceCube (not defined in this paper) can be used as TeV gamma detectors for transient events." Strictly speaking that has not been demonstrated. What has been demonstrated is that for a short time window and an angular cut consistent with the detector's angular resolution there were no background counts and this allows an upper limit on flux to be computed. You can say that about a lot of detectors. It is worth emphasizing that AMANDA has a large duty factor and a wide field of view so that it is sensitive to a large fraction of possible transients. >> Yes. We reformulated a bit the paragraph and emphasize now the fact >> that AMANDA has a large duty factor and field of view. Is the upper limit interesting? It is admitted that the neutrino limit is not very competitive but what about the gamma limit? Does it rule out fluxes expected from reasonable extrapolations of lower energy data or expected from reasonable models of what might be happening at the source? I suspect that has to do with the paragraph at the top of page 11. If that paragraph is spelled out more explicitly it will be easier to follow it up in the conclusions. >> I hope it is now a bit more clear, after simplifying that paragraph. >> Best regards,