Prompt electron and tau neutrinos and antineutrinos in the forward region at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper evaluates prompt electron and tau neutrino fluxes at the LHC's forward region using NLO QCD calculations, providing predictions crucial for upcoming experiments like FASERν and SND@LHC.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed NLO QCD predictions of prompt neutrino double-differential cross sections at the LHC's high rapidity region.

Findings

Predicted neutrino energy and pseudorapidity distributions at 14 TeV.

Data tables with double-differential cross section predictions.

Discussion on future refinements for flux predictions.

Abstract

Neutrino fluxes at high rapidity and at high energy are sensitive to QCD dynamics of heavy-flavor production in kinematic regions where measurements have not yet been made. The FASER$\nu$ and SND@LHC experiments scheduled for Run 3 at the LHC and the proposed Forward Physics Facility with a suite of experiments during the High-Luminosity LHC phase will probe neutrinos at high pseudorapidity. This short paper reports on recent evaluations of the prompt $\nu_\tau+\bar\nu_\tau$ and $\nu_e+\bar\nu_e$ double-differential cross sections in $pp$ collisions at the Large Hadron Collider from the production and decays of $D_s^\pm$ and $D^\pm$, respectively. For $\sqrt{s}=14$ TeV, the double-differential neutrino energy and pseudorapidity distributions are evaluated at NLO QCD. Data tables with these predictions are presented. Future work needed to refine predictions of neutrino and antineutrino fluxes in the forward region at the LHC is discussed.