Prompt neutrino fluxes from atmospheric charm

2008/06/30 by Rikard Enberg, Mary Hall Reno, Ina Sarčević +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.78.043005

published as Phys.Rev.D78:043005,2008 · 13 pages with 11 figures; expanded discussion, added references, version to be published in Phys. Rev. D

arxiv created 2008/07/16 · openalex publication_date 2008/08/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We calculate the prompt neutrino flux from atmospheric charm production by cosmic rays, using the dipole picture in a perturbative QCD framework, which incorporates the parton saturation effects present at high energies. We compare our results with the next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD result and find that saturation effects are large for neutrino energies above 10⁶ GeV, leading to a substantial suppression of the prompt neutrino flux. We comment on the range of prompt neutrino fluxes due to theoretical uncertainties.

Citations

• Charm Production and High Energy Atmospheric Muon and Neutrino Fluxes
• Universality and tree structure of high-energy QCD
• Asymptotic freedom in parton language
• Traveling wave fronts and the transition to saturation
• The BFKL equation from the Wilson renormalization group
• A 3-Dimensional Calculation of Atmospheric Neutrino Flux
• Black holes at neutrino telescopes
• Lepton spectra in the earth's atmosphere

Cited by

• High energy neutrinos from charm in astrophysical sources