On Ultrahigh-energy Neutrino Scattering

TL;DR

This paper predicts the neutrino-nucleon cross section at ultrahigh energies using the color-dipole model, clarifying the energy range where saturation effects influence the cross section and challenging previous claims of strong suppression.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of the neutrino-nucleon cross section at ultrahigh energies, distinguishing the roles of saturation and color transparency regions, and refutes claims of early suppression.

Findings

Suppression of cross section occurs only above 10^{14} GeV.

Color-dipole picture effectively models ultrahigh-energy neutrino interactions.

Contradicts previous literature predicting strong suppression at energies above 10^{9} GeV.

Abstract

We predict the neutrino-nucleon cross section at ultrahigh energies relevant in connection with the search for high-energy cosmic neutrinos. Our investigation, employing the color-dipole picture, among other things allows us to quantitatively determine which fraction of the ultrahigh-energy neutrino-nucleon cross section stems from the saturation versus the color-transparency region. We disagree with various results in the literature that predict a strong suppression of the neutrino-nucleon cross section at neutrino energies above $E \cong 10^9 GeV$. Suppression in the sense of a diminished increase of the neutrino-nucleon cross section with energy only starts to occur at neutrino energies beyond $E \cong 10^{14} GeV$.