Probing leptoquark production at IceCube

Abstract

We emphasize the inelasticity distribution of events detected at the IceCube neutrino telescope as an important tool for revealing new physics. This is possible because the unique energy resolution at this facility allows to separately assign the energy fractions for emergent muons and taus in neutrino interactions. As a particular example, we explore the possibility of probing second and third generation leptoquark parameter space (coupling and mass). We show that production of leptoquarks with masses \agt 250 GeV and diagonal generation couplings of O(1) can be directly tested if the cosmic neutrino flux is at the Waxman-Bahcall level.Comment: Matching version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Upper Limit on the Diffuse Flux of Ultrahigh Energy Tau Neutrinos from the Pierre Auger Observatory

“…The main uncertainty in these comes from the QCD structure functions in the relevant kinematic range. We estimate the uncertainty in the exposure due to the cross-section to be 15% based on the allowed range explored in [30]. The uncertainties in the energy losses are dominated by the photonuclear cross section.…”

“…Schmidt, 38 F. Schmidt, 91 T. Schmidt, 41 O. Scholten, 61 P. Schovánek, 30 F. Schüssler, 37 S. J. Sciutto, 10 M. Scuderi, 48 A. Segreto, 51 D. Semikoz, 32 M. Settimo, 45 R. C. Shellard, 19,20 The surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory is sensitive to Earth-skimming tau neutrinos that interact in Earth's crust. Tau leptons from charged-current interactions can emerge and decay in the atmosphere to produce a nearly horizontal shower with a significant electromagnetic component.…”

“…[30], the parametrisation of the energy losses from Ref. [32] and an uniform random distribution for the polarization.…”

Black holes at the IceCube neutrino telescope

“…Moreover, the energy reconstruction is optimized for neutrino energy E ν > 10 6 GeV, allowing sufficient precision (±0.2 on a log 10 scale) to separately assign the energy fraction for emergent muons in neutrino interactions. Because of this, the inelasticity distribution of events becomes a unique tool for SM background rejection, providing powerful discrimination of resonant processes [12]. In this work we re-examine the prospects for discovering BH resonances at IceCube, by tagging on "soft" (relative to what one would expect from charged current SM processes) muons escaping the electromagnetic shower bubble triggered by the BH explosion.…”

Constraints on leptoquark models from IceCube data

“…It has been pointed out [26] that a natural arena for the production of leptoquarks is the neutrino-nucleon interactions at IceCube [27]. Recently the leptoquark interaction of the form S † ( L .Q L + u C τ C ) of a scalar leptoquark with the third generation leptons and first generation quarks has been proposed as an explanation of the 2 year IceCube data [28].…”