Constraints on atmospheric charmed-meson production from IceCube


Abstract in English

At very-high energies (100 TeV - 1 PeV), the small value of Bjorken-x ($le10^{-3}-10^{-7}$) at which the parton distribution functions are evaluated makes the calculation of charm quark production very difficult. The charm quark has mass ($sim$1.5$pm$0.2 GeV) significantly above the $Lambda$$_{QCD}$ scale ($sim$200 MeV), and therefore its production is perturbatively calculable. However, the uncertainty in the data and the calculations cannot exclude some smaller non-perturbative contribution. To evaluate the prompt neutrino flux, one needs to know the charm production cross-section in pN -> c$bar{c}$ X, and hadronization of charm particles. This contribution briefly discusses computation of prompt neutrino flux and presents the strongest limit on prompt neutrino flux from IceCube.

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