Quark mass effects in high energy neutrino nucleon scattering

We evaluate the neutrino nucleon charged current cross section at next-to-leading order in quantum chromodynamic corrections in the variable flavor number scheme and the fixed flavor number scheme, taking into account quark masses. The number scheme dependence is largest at the highest energies considered here, $10^{12}$ GeV, where the cross sections differ by approximately 15 percent. We illustrate the numerical implications of the inconsistent application of the fixed flavor number scheme.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, v2: updated pdfs, version accepted for publicatio

Target Mass Corrections to Electro-Weak Structure Functions and Perturbative Neutrino Cross Sections

We provide a complete and consistent framework to include subasymptotic perturbative as well as mass corrections to the leading twist (tau=2) evaluation of charged and neutral current weak structure functions and the perturbative neutrino cross sections. We revisit previous calculations in a modern language and fill in the gaps that we find missing for a complete and ready-to-use "NLO xi-scaling" formulary. In particular, as a new result we formulate the mixing of the partonic and hadronic structure function tensor basis in the operator approach to deep inelastic scattering. As an underlying framework we follow the operator product expansion a la Georgi & Politzer that allows the inclusion of target mass corrections at arbitrary order in QCD and we provide explicit analytical and numerical results at NLO. We compare this approach with a simpler collinear parton model approach to xi-scaling. Along with target mass corrections we include heavy quark mass effects as a calculable leading twist power suppressed correction. The complete corrections have been implemented into a Monte Carlo integration program to evaluate structure functions and/or integrated cross sections. As applications, we compare the operator approach with the collinear approximation numerically and we investigate the NLO and mass corrections to observables that are related to the extraction of the weak mixing angle from a Paschos-Wolfenstein-like relation in neutrino-iron scattering. We expect that the interpretation of neutrino scattering events in terms of oscillation physics and electroweak precision physics will benefit from our results.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, note added, to appear in PR

Ultrahigh energy neutrinos, small x and unitarity

The ultrahigh energy cross section for neutrino interactions with nucleons is reviewed, and unitarity constraints are discussed. We argue that existing QCD extrapolations are self-consistent, and do not imply a breakdown of the perturbative expansion in the weak coupling.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX4, contribution to Snowmass 200

Ultrahigh Energy Tau Neutrinos

We study ultrahigh energy astrophysical neutrinos and the contribution of tau neutrinos from neutrino oscillations, relative to the contribution of the other flavors. We show the effect of tau neutrino regeneration and tau energy loss as they propagate through the Earth. We consider a variety of neutrino fluxes, such as cosmogenic neutrinos and neutrinos that originate in Active Galactic Nuclei. We discuss signals of tau neutrinos in detectors such as IceCube, RICE and ANITA.Comment: Invited talk given at the ``8th Workshop on Non-Perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics", June 7-11, 2004, Paris, France; 10 pages, 6 figure