Abstract
Detecting TeV--PeV cosmic neutrinos provides crucial tests of neutrino physics and astrophysics. The statistics of IceCube and the larger proposed IceCube-Gen2 demand calculations of neutrino-nucleus interactions subdominant to deep-inelastic scattering, which is mediated by weak-boson couplings to nuclei. The largest such interactions are W-boson and trident production, which are mediated instead through photon couplings to nuclei. In a companion paper [1], we make the most comprehensive and precise calculations of those interactions at high energies. In this paper, we study their phenomenological consequences. We find that: (1) These interactions are dominated by the production of on-shell W-bosons, which carry most of the neutrino energy, (2) The cross section on water/iron can be as large as 7.5%/14% that of charged-current deep-inelastic scattering, much larger than the quoted uncertainty on the latter, (3) Attenuation in Earth is increased by as much as 15%, (4) W-boson production on nuclei exceeds that through the Glashow resonance on electrons by a factor of $\simeq$ 20 for the best-fit IceCube spectrum, (5) The primary signals are showers that will significantly affect the detection rate in IceCube-Gen2; a small fraction of events give unique signatures that may be detected sooner.
Highlights
The recent detections of TeV–PeV neutrinos by IceCube [1,2,3,4,5,6] are a breakthrough in neutrino astrophysics
Starting in the TeV range, neutrinos may be significantly attenuated while passing through Earth. (For a path along an Earth diameter, τ 1⁄4 1 at Eν ≃ 40 TeV.) Attenuation depends on the total CCDIS þ NCDIS cross section, σðEνÞ
The change in A can be as large as 15%. This follows from 1− ADISþWBP=ADIS 1⁄4 1 − expð−CσWBPÞ ≃ CσDIS × σWBP=σDIS≃ τ × σWBP=σDIS, which is the multiplication of the optical depth and the cross section ratio, which ≃10%=1.4 ≃ 7% for νe
Summary
The recent detections of TeV–PeV neutrinos by IceCube [1,2,3,4,5,6] are a breakthrough in neutrino astrophysics. Cherenkov light is produced by muon tracks and through the production of numerous low-energy electrons and positrons in showers With these coming improved detection prospects, new questions can be asked, including the role of subdominant interactions. We focus on those in which the coupling to the nucleus and its constituents is through a virtual photon, γÃ, instead of a weak boson [49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65].
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