High-energy neutrino deep inelastic scattering cross sections

TL;DR

This paper provides advanced predictions for neutrino deep inelastic scattering cross sections at extremely high energies, incorporating latest PDFs and uncertainty quantification for applications in astrophysical neutrino detection.

Contribution

It introduces state-of-the-art cross section calculations using the latest PDFs and explores uncertainties from extrapolations and nuclear corrections at ultra-high energies.

Findings

Cross section predictions extend up to 10^{12} GeV.

Uncertainty quantification for small-x extrapolations.

Implications for neutrino observatories like IceCube and KM3NeT.

Abstract

We present a state-of-the-art prediction for cross sections of neutrino deep inelastic scattering (DIS) from nucleon at high neutrino energies, $E_\nu$, from 100 GeV to 1000 EeV ($10^{12}$ GeV). Our calculations are based on the latest CT18 NNLO parton distribution functions (PDFs) and their associated uncertainties. In order to make predictions for the highest energies, we extrapolate the PDFs to small $x$ according to several procedures and assumptions, thus affecting the uncertainties at ultra-high $E_\nu$; we quantify the uncertainties corresponding to these choices. Similarly, we quantify the uncertainties introduced by the nuclear corrections which are required to evaluate neutrino-nuclear cross sections for neutrino telescopes. These results can be applied to currently-running astrophysical neutrino observatories, such as IceCube and KM3NeT, as well as various future experiments which have been proposed.