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Title: Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

We present a new calculation of the energy distribution of high-energy neutrinos from the decay of charm and bottom hadrons produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the kinematical region of very forward rapidities, heavy-flavor production and decay is a source of tau neutrinos that leads to thousands of charged-current tau neutrino events in a 1 m long, 1 m radius lead neutrino detector at a distance of 480 m from the interaction region. In our computation, next-to-leading order QCD radiative corrections are accounted for in the production cross-sections. Non-perturbative intrinsic-kT effects are approximated by a simple phenomenological model introducing a Gaussian kT-smearing of the parton distribution functions, which might also mimic perturbative effects due to multiple initial-state soft-gluon emissions. The transition from partonic to hadronic states is described by phenomenological fragmentation functions. To study the effect of various input parameters, theoretical predictions for $$D^{±}_s$$ production are compared with LHCb data on double-differential cross-sections in transverse momentum and rapidity. The uncertainties related to the choice of the input parameter values, ultimately affecting the predictions of the tau neutrino event distributions, are discussed. We consider a 3+1 neutrino mixing scenario to illustrate the potential for a neutrino experiment to constrainmore » the 3+1 parameter space using tau neutrinos and antineutrinos. We find large theoretical uncertainties in the predictions of the neutrino fluxes in the far-forward region. Untangling the effects of tau neutrino oscillations into sterile neutrinos and distinguishing a 3+1 scenario from the standard scenario with three active neutrino flavours, will be challenging due to the large theoretical uncertainties from QCD.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, IA (United States)
  2. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
  3. Universit`a degli Studi di Firenze, (Italy)
  4. European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
OSTI Identifier:
1599289
Report Number(s):
BNL-213623-2020-FORE; CERN-TH-2020-007
TRN: US2102760
DOE Contract Number:  
SC-0010113; SC-0012704
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS

Citation Formats

Bai, Weidong, Diwan, Milind, Garzelli, Maria Vittoria, Jeong, Yu Seon, and Reno, Mary Hall. Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider. United States: N. p., 2020. Web. doi:10.2172/1599289.
Bai, Weidong, Diwan, Milind, Garzelli, Maria Vittoria, Jeong, Yu Seon, & Reno, Mary Hall. Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1599289
Bai, Weidong, Diwan, Milind, Garzelli, Maria Vittoria, Jeong, Yu Seon, and Reno, Mary Hall. 2020. "Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1599289. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1599289.
@article{osti_1599289,
title = {Far-forward neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider},
author = {Bai, Weidong and Diwan, Milind and Garzelli, Maria Vittoria and Jeong, Yu Seon and Reno, Mary Hall},
abstractNote = {We present a new calculation of the energy distribution of high-energy neutrinos from the decay of charm and bottom hadrons produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the kinematical region of very forward rapidities, heavy-flavor production and decay is a source of tau neutrinos that leads to thousands of charged-current tau neutrino events in a 1 m long, 1 m radius lead neutrino detector at a distance of 480 m from the interaction region. In our computation, next-to-leading order QCD radiative corrections are accounted for in the production cross-sections. Non-perturbative intrinsic-kT effects are approximated by a simple phenomenological model introducing a Gaussian kT-smearing of the parton distribution functions, which might also mimic perturbative effects due to multiple initial-state soft-gluon emissions. The transition from partonic to hadronic states is described by phenomenological fragmentation functions. To study the effect of various input parameters, theoretical predictions for $D^{±}_s$ production are compared with LHCb data on double-differential cross-sections in transverse momentum and rapidity. The uncertainties related to the choice of the input parameter values, ultimately affecting the predictions of the tau neutrino event distributions, are discussed. We consider a 3+1 neutrino mixing scenario to illustrate the potential for a neutrino experiment to constrain the 3+1 parameter space using tau neutrinos and antineutrinos. We find large theoretical uncertainties in the predictions of the neutrino fluxes in the far-forward region. Untangling the effects of tau neutrino oscillations into sterile neutrinos and distinguishing a 3+1 scenario from the standard scenario with three active neutrino flavours, will be challenging due to the large theoretical uncertainties from QCD.},
doi = {10.2172/1599289},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1599289}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Feb 07 00:00:00 EST 2020},
month = {Fri Feb 07 00:00:00 EST 2020}
}