Probing strong dynamics with cosmic neutrinos

Abstract

IceCube has observed 80 astrophysical neutrino candidates in the energy range 0.02 < E_ν/PeV < 2. Deep inelastic scattering of these neutrinos with nucleons on Antarctic ice sheet probe center-of-mass energies $\sqrt{s}\sim$ 1 TeV. By comparing the rates for two classes of observable events, any departure from the benchmark (perturbative QCD) neutrino-nucleon cross section can be constrained. Using the projected sensitivity of South Pole next generation neutrino telescope we show that this facility will provide a unique probe of strong interaction dynamics. In particular, we demonstrate that the high-energy high-statistics data sample to be recorded by IceCube-Gen2 in the very near future will deliver a direct measurement of the neutrino-nucleon cross section at $\sqrt{s}\sim 1$ TeV, with a precision comparable to perturbative QCD informed by HERA data. We also use IceCube data to extract the neutrino-nucleon cross section at $\sqrt{s}\sim 1$ TeV through a likelihood analysis, considering (for the first time) both the charged-current and neutral-current contributions as free parameters of the likelihood function.

v2 includes determination of the neutrino-nucleon neutral-current cross section using IceCube data

References in corpus (13)

• Atmospheric and Astrophysical Neutrinos above 1 TeV Interacting in IceCube
• Flavor Ratio of Astrophysical Neutrinos above 35 TeV in IceCube
• Measurement of the multi-TeV neutrino cross section with IceCube using Earth absorption
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• Measurements using the inelasticity distribution of multi-TeV neutrino interactions in IceCube
• Neutrino Telescopes as QCD Microscopes
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• On the flavor composition of the high-energy neutrino events in IceCube
• Probing leptoquark production at IceCube
• New physics with ultra-high-energy neutrinos
• Disentangling neutrino-nucleon cross section and high energy neutrino flux with a km^3 neutrino telescope
• Cross section dependence of event rates at neutrino telescopes
• Gamma Ray Burst Neutrinos Probing Quantum Gravity

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The IceCube high-energy starting event sample: Description and flux characterization with 7.5 years of data
• The Forward Physics Facility: Sites, Experiments, and Physics Potential
• Ultra-High-Energy Tau Neutrino Cross Sections with GRAND and POEMMA
• The study of the gluon distribution function and reduced cross section behavior using the proton structure function
• The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC