Neutrino-nucleus cross sections for W-boson and trident production

Abstract

The physics of neutrino-nucleus cross sections is a critical probe of the Standard Model and beyond. A precise understanding is also needed to accurately deduce astrophysical neutrino spectra. At energies above $\sim 5$ GeV, the cross section is dominated by deep inelastic scattering, mediated by weak bosons. In addition, there are subdominant processes where the hadronic coupling is through virtual photons, ${\gamma }^{\ast }$: (on-shell) $W$-boson production (e.g., where the underlying interaction is ${\nu }_{\ell }+{\gamma }^{\ast }\to {\ell }^{-}+W^{+}$) and trident production (e.g., where it is $\nu +{\gamma }^{\ast }\to \nu +{\ell }_1^{-}+{\ell }_2^{+}$). These processes become increasingly relevant at TeV--PeV energies. We undertake the first systematic approach to these processes (and those with hadronic couplings through virtual $W$ and $Z$ bosons), treating them together, avoiding common approximations, considering all neutrino flavors and final states, and covering the energy range $10$--$10^8$ GeV. In particular, we present the first complete calculation of $W$-boson production and the first calculation of trident production at TeV--PeV energies. When we use the same assumptions as in prior work, we recover all of their major results. In a companion paper, we show that these processes should be taken into account for IceCube-Gen2.

arXiv commentMain text 14 pages and 13 figures; minor changes; results and conclusions unchanged; matches published version

References in corpus (81)

• The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations
• Observation of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos in Three Years of IceCube Data
• CalcHEP 3.4 for collider physics within and beyond the Standard Model
• The GENIE Neutrino Monte Carlo Generator
• New Developments in FeynCalc 9.0
• Letter of Intent for KM3NeT 2.0
• ANTARES: the first undersea neutrino telescope
• From eV to EeV: Neutrino Cross Sections Across Energy Scales
• Parton distributions with QED corrections
• Ultrahigh-Energy Neutrino Interactions
• Neutrino Interactions at Ultrahigh Energies
• EPPS16: Nuclear parton distributions with LHC data
• nCTEQ15 - Global analysis of nuclear parton distributions with uncertainties in the CTEQ framework
• Particle Physics with High Energy Neutrinos
• Transport-theoretical Description of Nuclear Reactions
• Neutrino Trident Production: A Powerful Probe of New Physics with Neutrino Beams
• A combined maximum-likelihood analysis of the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux measured with IceCube
• Parton distributions incorporating QED contributions
• Hidden Cosmic-Ray Accelerators as an Origin of TeV-PeV Cosmic Neutrinos
• How bright is the proton? A precise determination of the photon parton distribution function
• Diffuse Neutrino Intensity from the Inner Jets of Active Galactic Nuclei: Impacts of External Photon Fields and the Blazar Sequence
• A Proposal for a Three Detector Short-Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Program in the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam
• A facility to Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) at the CERN SPS
• Coincidence of a high-fluence blazar outburst with a PeV-energy neutrino event
• Gallium Solar Neutrino Experiments: Absorption Cross sections, Neutrino spectra, and Predicted Event Rates
• The Photon Content of the Proton
• Illuminating the photon content of the proton within a global PDF analysis
• The high energy neutrino cross-section in the Standard Model and its uncertainty
• Star-forming galaxies as the origin of diffuse high-energy backgrounds: Gamma-ray and neutrino connections, and implications for starburst history
• Precise Measurement of Neutrino and Anti-neutrino Differential Cross Sections
• Measurement of the multi-TeV neutrino cross section with IceCube using Earth absorption
• Dark Neutrino Portal to Explain MiniBooNE excess
• Theoretically palatable flavor combinations of astrophysical neutrinos
• Cosmic neutrino cascades from secret neutrino interactions
• The Short-Baseline Neutrino Program at Fermilab
• Calculation of High Energy Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Sections and Uncertainties Using the MSTW Parton Distribution Functions and Implications for Future Experiments
• Testing the Dark Matter Scenario for PeV Neutrinos Observed in IceCube
• CT14QED PDFs from Isolated Photon Production in Deep Inelastic Scattering
• Evidence against star-forming galaxies as the dominant source of IceCube neutrinos
• Are both BL Lacs and pulsar wind nebulae the astrophysical counterparts of IceCube neutrino events?
• DUNE as the Next-Generation Solar Neutrino Experiment
• Superheavy dark matter and IceCube neutrino signals:bounds on decaying dark matter
• Double Bangs from New Physics in IceCube
• Perturbative charm production and the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux in light of RHIC and LHC
• Extracting the Energy-Dependent Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Section Above 10 TeV Using IceCube Showers
• Neutrino Tridents at DUNE
• IceCube PeV-EeV Neutrinos and Secret Interactions of Neutrinos
• Global analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions and their uncertainties at next-to-next-to-leading order
• Supernova Inelastic Neutrino-Nucleus Cross Sections from High-Resolution Electron Scattering Experiments and Shell-Model Calculations
• Detecting Microscopic Black Holes with Neutrino Telescopes
• Neutrino Telescopes as QCD Microscopes
• Neutrino-Nucleus Reaction Cross Sections for Light Element Synthesis in Supernova Explosions
• Testing decay of astrophysical neutrinos with incomplete information
• Demystifying the PeV Cascades in IceCube: Less (Energy) is More (Events)
• Neutrino Trident Scattering at Near Detectors
• Connection of the virtual ${\gamma }^{\ast }p$ cross section of $ep$ deep inelastic scattering to real $\gamma p$ scattering, and the implications for $\nu N$ and $ep$ total cross sections
• The prompt atmospheric neutrino flux in the light of LHCb
• TeV Strings and the Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Section at Ultra-high Energies
• Standard Model Parton Distributions at Very High Energies
• Standard Model Explanation of the Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Events at IceCube
• The High-Energy Behavior of Photon, Neutrino and Proton Cross Sections
• Neutrino-photon reactions in astrophysics and cosmology
• Measurement of isolated photon production in deep inelastic ep scattering
• The photon PDF of the proton
• Evidence for Diffractive Charm Production in nu_mu Fe and nubar_mu Fe Scattering at the Tevatron
• Atmospheric Trident Production for Probing New Physics
• The Polarized and Unpolarized Photon Content of the Nucleon
• W-boson and trident production in TeV--PeV neutrino observatories
• Neutrino Trident Production at the Intensity Frontier
• Measuring High Energy Neutrino-Nucleon Cross Sections With Future Neutrino Telescopes
• Photon-initiated processes at high mass
• Global study of nuclear modifications on parton distribution functions
• Electroweak Gauge Boson Parton Distribution Functions
• Precise predictions for multi-$\mathrm{TeV}$ and $\mathrm{PeV}$ energy neutrino scattering rates
• Hidden Glashow resonance in neutrino-nucleus collisions
• Disentangling neutrino-nucleon cross section and high energy neutrino flux with a km^3 neutrino telescope
• Polarization Effects in Standard Model Parton Distributions at Very High Energies
• nuSTORM: Neutrinos from Stored Muons
• IceCube High Energy Starting Events at 7.5 Years -- New Measurements of Flux and Flavor
• The Glashow resonance in neutrino-photon scattering
• Neutrino Absorption in the Earth, Neutrino Cross-Sections, and New Physics

Cited by in corpus (35)

• IceCube-Gen2: The Window to the Extreme Universe
• Dark Matter Annihilation to Neutrinos
• Prospects for Beyond the Standard Model Physics Searches at the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment
• Snowmass 2021 whitepaper: Proton structure at the precision frontier
• White Paper on New Opportunities at the Next-Generation Neutrino Experiments (Part 1: BSM Neutrino Physics and Dark Matter)
• Search for High-Energy Neutrino Emission from Radio-Bright AGN
• Complete predictions for high-energy neutrino propagation in matter
• Tau Neutrinos in the Next Decade: from GeV to EeV
• Measurement of the high-energy all-flavor neutrino-nucleon cross section with IceCube
• W-boson and trident production in TeV--PeV neutrino observatories
• The ultra-high-energy neutrino-nucleon cross section: measurement forecasts for an era of cosmic EeV-neutrino discovery
• Complete Vector-like Fourth Family with ${\mathrm{U}(1)}^{\prime }$: A Global Analysis
• New physics of strong interaction and Dark Universe
• LeptonInjector and LeptonWeighter: A neutrino event generator and weighter for neutrino observatories
• Detector Requirements for Model-Independent Measurements of Ultrahigh Energy Neutrino Cross Sections
• Dimuons in Neutrino Telescopes: New Predictions and First Search in IceCube
• Investigating the correlations between IceCube high-energy neutrinos and Fermi-LAT gamma-ray observations
• $W$ mass in a model with vector-like leptons and $U(1{)}^{\prime }$
• High-energy neutrino deep inelastic scattering cross sections
• Discovering neutrino tridents at the Large Hadron Collider
• Tau Appearance from High-Energy Neutrino Interactions
• High-energy neutrinos from choked-jet supernovae: Searches and implications
• Kinematical distributions of coherent neutrino trident production in gauged $L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }$ model
• First Search for Unstable Sterile Neutrinos with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
• Final state radiation from high and ultrahigh energy neutrino interactions
• Revisiting for maximal flavor violating $Z_{e\mu }^{{}^{\prime }}$ and its phenomenology constraints
• Neutrino Interaction Physics in Neutrino Telescopes
• First Search for High-Energy Neutrino Emission from Galaxy Mergers
• Dark Matter Internal Pair Production -- A Novel Direct Detection Mechanism
• Investigating the correlations between IceCube high-energy neutrinos and Fermi-LAT $\gamma$-ray observations. II
• Probing a $Z^{\prime }$ gauge boson via neutrino trident scattering in the Forward Physics Facility at the LHC and FCC
• Tau Tridents at Accelerator Neutrino Facilities
• Search for Charm-quark Production via Dimuons in Neutrino Telescopes
• The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC
• Forward neutrino production and event rates at the Future Circular Collider for hadron collisions