Implications of a Electroweak Triplet Scalar Leptoquark on the Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Events at IceCube

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a specific electroweak triplet scalar leptoquark could explain the excess of ultra-high energy neutrino events observed at IceCube, while also being consistent with collider and low-energy data.

Contribution

It introduces a model with a colored electroweak-triplet scalar leptoquark and analyzes its impact on IceCube neutrino data and existing experimental constraints.

Findings

Best-fit parameters for the leptoquark explaining IceCube excess

95% CL upper bounds on leptoquark couplings

Compatibility with LHC and low-energy observables

Abstract

We study the production of scalar leptoquarks at IceCube, in particular, a particle transforming as a triplet under the weak interaction. The existence of electroweak-triplet scalars is highly motivated by models of grand unification and also within radiative seesaw models for neutrino mass generation. In our framework, we extend the Standard Model by a single colored electroweak-triplet scalar leptoquark and analyze its implications on the excess of ultra-high energy neutrino events observed by the IceCube collaboration. We consider only couplings between the leptoquark to first generation leptons and quarks and carry out a statistical analysis to determine the parameters that best describe the IceCube data as well as set $95\%$ CL upper bounds. We analyze whether this study is still consistent with most up-to-date LHC data and various low energy observables.