Lepton fluxes from atmospheric charm revisited

Abstract

We update predictions for lepton fluxes from the hadroproduction of charm quarks in the scattering of primary cosmic rays with the Earth's atmosphere. The calculation of charm-pair hadroproduction applies the latest results from perturbative QCD through next-to-next-to-leading order and modern parton distributions, together with estimates on various sources of uncertainties. Our predictions for the lepton fluxes turn out to be compatible, within the uncertainty band, with recent results in the literature. However, by taking into account contributions neglected in previous works, our total uncertainties are much larger. The predictions are crucial for the interpretation of results from neutrino experiments like IceCube, when disentangling signals of neutrinos of astrophysical origin from the atmospheric background.

40 pages, 24 figures

References in corpus (23)

• PYTHIA 6.4 Physics and Manual
• Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Matching NLO QCD computations with Parton Shower simulations: the POWHEG method
• New parton distributions for collider physics
• LHAPDF6: parton density access in the LHC precision era
• Parton distributions in the LHC era: MMHT 2014 PDFs
• -- HATHOR -- HAdronic Top and Heavy quarks crOss section calculatoR
• MCFM for the Tevatron and the LHC
• Calculation of atmospheric neutrino flux using the interaction model calibrated with atmospheric muon data
• Prompt neutrino fluxes from atmospheric charm
• Measuring the running top-quark mass
• Measurement of the proton-air cross-section at $\sqrt{s}=57$ TeV with the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Quark mass relations to four-loop order
• Measurement of high-p_T Single Electrons from Heavy-Flavor Decays in p+p Collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV
• Perturbative charm production and the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux in light of RHIC and LHC
• The 3-Loop Pure Singlet Heavy Flavor Contributions to the Structure Function $F_2(x,Q^2)$ and the Anomalous Dimension
• Heavy Flavour Hadro-Production from Fixed-Target to Collider Energies
• Impact of heavy-flavour production cross sections measured by the LHCb experiment on parton distribution functions at low x
• Possible Interpretations of IceCube High-Energy Neutrino Events
• Measurement of D^0, D^+, D_s^+ and D^{*+} Production in Fixed Target 920 GeV Proton-Nucleus Collisions
• Charm Production and QCD Analysis at HERA and LHC
• Cosmic rays: the spectrum and chemical composition from $10^{10}$ to $10^{20}$ eV
• Charm, Beauty and Top at HERA

Cited by in corpus (53)

• Letter of Intent for KM3NeT 2.0
• Observation and Characterization of a Cosmic Muon Neutrino Flux from the Northern Hemisphere using six years of IceCube data
• The IceCube high-energy starting event sample: Description and flux characterization with 7.5 years of data
• Measurement of the multi-TeV neutrino cross section with IceCube using Earth absorption
• The Forward Physics Facility: Sites, Experiments, and Physics Potential
• Grand Unified Neutrino Spectrum at Earth: Sources and Spectral Components
• The Muon Puzzle in cosmic-ray induced air showers and its connection to the Large Hadron Collider
• A Critical Appraisal and Evaluation of Modern PDFs
• Sensitivity of the KM3NeT/ARCA neutrino telescope to point-like neutrino sources
• Extracting the Energy-Dependent Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Section Above 10 TeV Using IceCube Showers
• Measurement of D-meson production at mid-rapidity in pp collisions at $\sqrt{\mathbf{s}}=7$ TeV
• Measurements using the inelasticity distribution of multi-TeV neutrino interactions in IceCube
• Neutrino Telescopes as QCD Microscopes
• D-meson production in p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02$ TeV and in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV
• Prompt atmospheric neutrino fluxes: perturbative QCD models and nuclear effects
• Precision determination of the small-$x$ gluon from charm production at LHCb
• Characterization of the Atmospheric Muon Flux in IceCube
• The prompt atmospheric neutrino flux in the light of LHCb
• Neutrinos from cosmic ray interactions in the Sun
• Prompt neutrinos from atmospheric charm in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme
• Prompt neutrino fluxes in the atmosphere with PROSA parton distribution functions
• Using hadron-in-jet data in a global analysis of $D^{\ast }$ fragmentation functions
• A consistent model for leptogenesis, dark matter and the IceCube signal
• On the Charm Contribution to the Atmospheric Neutrino Flux
• First determination of $D^{\ast +}$-meson fragmentation functions and their uncertainties at next-to-next-to-leading order
• On the IceCube spectral anomaly
• Improved constraints on parton distributions using LHCb, ALICE and HERA heavy-flavour measurements and implications for the predictions for prompt atmospheric-neutrino fluxes
• Unified atmospheric neutrino passing fractions for large-scale neutrino telescopes
• IC at IC: IceCube can constrain the intrinsic charm of the proton
• Observation of Seven Astrophysical Tau Neutrino Candidates with IceCube
• Intrinsic charm contribution to the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux
• Mapping the dominant regions of the phase space associated with $c\bar{c}$ production relevant for the Prompt Atmospheric Neutrino Flux
• Charm Production and QCD Analysis at HERA and LHC
• Forward Neutrinos from Charm at Large Hadron Collider
• On the Accuracy of Underground Muon Intensity Calculations
• Forward production of prompt neutrinos from charm in the atmosphere and at high energy colliders
• $D$ - meson production at very forward rapidities: estimating the intrinsic charm contribution
• Heavy-flavor hadro-production with heavy-quark masses renormalized in the $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$, MSR and on-shell schemes
• Measurement of the ${\nu }_{\mu }$ energy spectrum with IceCube-79
• Tau Appearance from High-Energy Neutrino Interactions
• Diffuse axion-like particle searches
• Impact of intrinsic charm amount in the nucleon and saturation effects on the prompt atmospheric ${\nu }_{\mu }$ flux for IceCube
• On the prompt contribution to the atmospheric neutrino flux
• First Search for Unstable Sterile Neutrinos with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
• Atmospheric muons at PeV energies in radio neutrino detectors
• Atmospheric Neutrinos
• Depletion of atmospheric neutrino fluxes from parton energy loss
• Measurement of the $D^{+}$-meson production cross section at low transverse momentum in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV
• Impact of the inelastic proton -- nucleus cross section on the prompt neutrino flux
• The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC
• Constraints on atmospheric charmed-meson production from IceCube
• A novel phenomenological approach to total charm cross-section measurements at the LHC
• Present theoretical uncertainties on charm hadroproduction in QCD and prompt neutrino fluxes