Charmed hadron production in the QGSJET-III model: relevance to calculations of the prompt atmospheric neutrino background

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive model for charmed hadron production within QGSJET-III, combining perturbative and nonperturbative approaches, to improve predictions of the prompt atmospheric neutrino background relevant for high-energy astrophysics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel combined perturbative and nonperturbative model for charmed hadron production in QGSJET-III, calibrated with collider and cosmic-ray data.

Findings

The model accurately reproduces D meson production data at LHC.

Predictions for prompt atmospheric neutrino flux in the 10 TeV to 10 PeV range.

Enhanced understanding of charm production's role in atmospheric neutrino background.

Abstract

The treatment of charmed hadron production in the framework of the QGSJET-III Monte Carlo generator is developed, including both perturbative and nonperturbative contributions. For the former, a leading order (LO) perturbative formalism is employed. The so-called $K$-factor designed to take effectively into account higher order corrections, which controls the magnitude of the LO perturbative contribution, is fixed based on a comparison with experimental data on $D$ meson production at the Large Hadron Collider. For the nonperturbative intrinsic charm, a phenomenological Regge-based treatment is developed, with the corresponding normalization being chosen based on measurements of the spectra of $\Lambda_c$ baryons at large values of Feynman $x$. The model is applied for a calculation of the prompt atmospheric muon neutrino flux in the $10-100$ TeV and $1-10$ PeV energy intervals.