Charm of small $x$ neutrino DIS

TL;DR

This paper predicts that charm and strangeness diffractive excitation significantly influences the longitudinal structure function in small-x neutrino deep inelastic scattering, using the color dipole BFKL approach relevant for current experiments.

Contribution

It provides the first quantitative predictions for charm and strangeness contributions to $F_L$ at small x in neutrino DIS using the color dipole BFKL framework.

Findings

Charm and strangeness dominate $F_L$ at small x.

Quantitative predictions align with CCFR/NuTeV kinematic range.

Relevance to experimental tests of PCAC.

Abstract

Due to the weak current non-conservation the diffractive excitation of charm and strangeness dominates the longitudinal structure function $F_L(x,Q^2)$ of neutrino DIS at small Bjorken $x$. Based on the color dipole BFKL approach we report quantitative predictions for this effect in the kinematical range of the CCFR/NuTeV experiment. We comment on the relevance of our findings to experimental tests of PCAC.