From $D_s^{\pm }$ production asymmetry at the LHC to prompt ${\nu }_{\tau }$ at IceCube

Abstract

The description of the heavy meson production at large energies and forward rapidities at the LHC is fundamental to derive realistic predictions of the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux at the IceCube Observatory. In particular, the prompt tau neutrino flux is determined by the decay of $D_s$ mesons produced in cosmic ray - air interactions at high energies and large values of the Feynman - $x_F$ variable. Recent data from the LHCb Collaboration indicate a production asymmetry for $D_s^{+}$ and $D_s^{-}$ mesons, which cannot be explained in terms of the standard modelling of the hadronization process. In this paper we demonstrate that this asymmetry can be described assuming an asymmetric strange sea ($s(x)\ne \bar{s}(x)$) in the proton wave function and taking into account of the charm and strange fragmentation into $D_s$ mesons. Moreover, we show that the strange quark fragmentation contribution is dominant at large - $x_F$ ($\ge 0.3$). The prompt ${\nu }_{\tau }$ flux is calculated and the enhancement associated to the strange quark fragmentation contribution, disregarded in previous calculations, is estimated.

6 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (14)

• Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
• Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC
• Calculation of atmospheric neutrino flux using the interaction model calibrated with atmospheric muon data
• A facility to Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) at the CERN SPS
• Testing Hadronic Interactions at Ultrahigh Energies with Air Showers Measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Measurement of the D+/- production asymmetry in 7 TeV pp collisions
• Production of electroweak gauge bosons in off-shell gluon-gluon fusion
• Strange quark asymmetry in the proton in chiral effective theory
• Intrinsic charm contribution to the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux
• QCD analysis of the ATLAS and CMS $W^{\pm }$ and $Z$ cross-section measurements and implications for the strange sea density
• Mapping the dominant regions of the phase space associated with $c\bar{c}$ production relevant for the Prompt Atmospheric Neutrino Flux
• Prompt inclusive production of $J/\psi$, ${\psi }^{\prime }$ and ${\chi }_c$ mesons at the LHC in forward directions within the NRQCD $k_t$-factorization approach - search for the onset of gluon saturation
• D meson production asymmetry, unfavoured fragmentation and consequences for prompt atmospheric neutrino production
• Study of the $s-\bar{s}$ asymmetry in the proton

Cited by in corpus (6)

• The Forward Physics Facility: Sites, Experiments, and Physics Potential
• Independent quark/antiquark fragmentation to massive particles in proton-proton collisions
• Impact of intrinsic charm amount in the nucleon and saturation effects on the prompt atmospheric ${\nu }_{\mu }$ flux for IceCube
• Production asymmetry of ${\nu }_{\tau }$ neutrinos and ${\overline{\nu }}_{\tau }$ antineutrinos from a fixed target experiment SHiP
• Measurements of charmed meson and antimeson production asymmetries at $\sqrt{s}=13.6$ TeV
• New vistas in charm production