Prompt neutrino fluxes from atmospheric charm

TL;DR

This paper calculates atmospheric prompt neutrino fluxes from charm production using a dipole model with saturation effects, showing significant flux suppression at energies above 10^6 GeV compared to traditional QCD calculations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach incorporating saturation effects in perturbative QCD to estimate prompt neutrino fluxes from atmospheric charm production.

Findings

Saturation effects cause large suppression of neutrino fluxes above 10^6 GeV.

Comparison shows significant differences from NLO perturbative QCD results.

Theoretical uncertainties affect the predicted flux range.

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 10^6 GeV, leading to a substantial suppression of the prompt neutrino flux. We comment on the range of prompt neutrino fluxes due to theoretical uncertainties.