Measurement of the neutrino cross section across the TeV scale using IceCube data

Abstract

Neutrinos interact with matter exclusively through the weak force, resulting in extremely small cross sections that are difficult to measure. At TeV energies, neutrino-nucleon interactions probe the structure of the nucleon in regimes where our knowledge of it is less complete, and signatures of physics beyond the Standard Model could manifest. Recent measurements using collider, atmospheric, and astrophysical neutrinos have begun to explore this regime, but no single measurement has provided precise coverage from sub-TeV to tens of TeV, and uncertainties remain at the level of about 20-40%. Here we present a determination of the muon-neutrino-nucleon charged-current cross sections as a function of energy across 150 GeV-40 TeV using eight years of through-going muon neutrino data collected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. We measure the average neutrino-antineutrino cross section, enabling direct comparison with previous results, and find, for the first time above 1 TeV, mild indications that the neutrino and antineutrino cross sections can be measured separately. The measured cross sections are consistent with Standard Model predictions and are determined with uncertainties below 20% throughout the explored energy range, achieving the most precise characterization of neutrino-nucleon interactions across the TeV scale to date. These results provide a unified measurement of neutrino-nucleon cross sections in this energy regime, connecting accelerator-based and previous higher-energy neutrino observations - thereby advancing high-energy neutrino physics into the precision era.