Neutrinos from charm: forward production at the LHC and in the atmosphere

TL;DR

This paper discusses how measurements of charm hadron production at the LHC, especially in the forward region, impact predictions of high-energy atmospheric neutrino fluxes, which are important for neutrino astronomy.

Contribution

It highlights the role of current and future LHC experiments in constraining charm production models relevant to atmospheric neutrino flux predictions.

Findings

LHCb data constrains charm production in relevant kinematic regions.

Forward physics experiments can improve atmospheric neutrino flux models.

Implications for high-energy neutrino observations at Earth.

Abstract

Theoretical predictions of the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux have large uncertainties associated with charm hadron production, by far the dominant source of prompt neutrinos in the atmosphere. The flux of cosmic rays, with its steeply falling energy spectrum, weights the forward production of charm in the evaluation of the atmospheric neutrino flux at high energies. The current LHCb experiment at CERN constrains charm production in kinematic regions relevant to the prompt atmospheric neutrino flux. The proposed Forward Physics Facility has additional capabilities to detect neutrino fluxes from forward charm production at the LHC. We discuss the implications of the current and planned experiments on the development of theoretical predictions of the high energy atmospheric neutrino flux.