# Prompt neutrinos from atmospheric charm in the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme

## TL;DR

This paper predicts the flux of prompt neutrinos from atmospheric charm decay using a QCD-based approach, comparing results with experimental data and other models to understand high-energy cosmic ray interactions.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel prediction of prompt neutrino flux using the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme at NLO, incorporating consistent fragmentation functions.

## Key findings

- Predicted neutrino fluxes are consistent with IceCube measurements.
- The approach provides insights into charm hadroproduction at high energies.
- Results have implications for parton distribution functions in QCD.

## Abstract

We present predictions for the prompt-neutrino flux arising from the decay of charmed mesons and baryons produced by the interactions of high-energy cosmic rays in the Earth's atmosphere, making use of a QCD approach on the basis of the general-mass variable-flavor-number scheme for the description of charm hadroproduction at NLO, complemented by a consistent set of fragmentation functions. We compare the theoretical results to those already obtained by our and other groups with different theoretical approaches. We provide comparisons with the experimental results obtained by the IceCube Collaboration in two different analyses and we discuss the implications for parton distribution functions.