Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Francis Halzen

Publications and source records attributed to Francis Halzen.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Anomalies in (semi)-leptonic $B$ decays $B^{\pm} \to τ^{\pm} ν$, $B^{\pm} \to D τ^{\pm} ν$ and $B^{\pm} \to D^* τ^{\pm} ν$, and possible resolution with sterile neutrino

The universality of the weak interactions can be tested in semileptonic $b \to c$ transitions, and in particular in the ratios $R(D^{(*)}) \equiv Γ(B \rightarrow D^{(*)} τν)/Γ(B \rightarrow D^{(*)} \ell ν)$ (where $\ell = μ$ or $e$). Due to the recent differences between the experimental measurements of these observables by BaBar, Belle and LHCb on the one hand and the Standard Model predicted values on the other hand, we study the predicted ratios $R(D^{(*)}) = Γ(B \rightarrow D^{(*)} τ+$ "missing" $)/Γ(B \rightarrow D^{(*)} \ell ν)$ in scenarios with an additional sterile heavy neutrino of mass $\sim 1$ GeV. Further, we evaluate the newly defined ratio $R(0) \equiv Γ(B \to τ+$ "missing" $)/Γ(B \to μν)$ in such scenarios, in view of the future possibilities of measuring the quantity at Belle-II.

hep-ph↗

Identification of Gamma-Rays and Neutrinos from the Cygnus-X Complex Considering Radio Gamma Correlation

The abundance of accelerators and the ambient conditions make Cygnus X a natural laboratory for studying the life cycle of cosmic-rays (CRs). This naturally makes the Cygnus X complex a highly interesting source in neutrino astronomy, in particular concerning a possible detection with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which has a good view of the northern hemisphere. In this paper, we model the multiwavelength spectrum of the Cygnus, for the first time using a broad data set from radio, MeV (COMPTEL), GeV (Fermi), TeV (Argo) and 10s of TeV (Milagro) energies. The modeling is performed assuming a leptohadronic model. We solve the steady-state transport equation for leptons and hadrons injected homogeneously in the region and test the role of diffusive transport and energy loss by radiation and interaction. The result shows that diffusion loss plays a significant role in Cygnus X and always exceeds the advection loss as well as almost all other loss processes. The best-fit parameters we find are a magnetic field of $B=8.9\times10^{-6}$ G, a target density of $N_t=19.4$ cm$^{-3}$, a cosmic ray spectral index of $α=2.37$ and neutral gas distribution over a depth of 116 pc. We find that the fit describes the data up to TeV energies well, while the Milagro data are underestimated. This transport model with a broad multiwavelength fit provides a neutrino flux which approaches the sensitivity of IceCube at very high energies ($>$ 50 TeV). In the future, the flux sensitivity of IceCube will be improved. With this rather pessimistic model, leaving out the influence of possible strong, high-energy point sources, we already expect the flux in the Cygnus X region to suffice for IceCube to measure a significant neutrino flux in the next decade.

astro-ph.HE↗

Prospects for Detecting Galactic Sources of Cosmic Neutrinos with IceCube: An Update

Air-Cherenkov telescopes have mapped the Galactic plane at TeV energies. Here we evaluate the prospects for detecting the neutrino emission from sources in the Galactic plane assuming that the highest energy photons originate from the decay of pions, which yields a straightforward prediction for the neutrino flux from the decay of the associated production of charged pions. Four promising sources are identified based on having a large flux and a flat spectrum. We subsequently evaluate the probability of their identification above the atmospheric neutrino background in IceCube data as a function of time. We show that observing them over the twenty-year lifetime of the instrumentation is likely, and that some should be observable at the $3\,σ$ level with six years of data. In the absence of positive results, we derive constraints on the spectral index and cut-off energy of the sources, assuming a hadronic acceleration mechanism.

astro-ph.HE↗

High Energy Neutrinos from Recent Blazar Flares

The energy density of cosmic neutrinos measured by IceCube matches the one observed by Fermi in extragalactic photons that predominantly originate in blazars. This has inspired attempts to match Fermi sources with IceCube neutrinos. A spatial association combined with a coincidence in time with a flaring source may represent a smoking gun for the origin of the IceCube flux. In June 2015, the Fermi Large Area Telescope observed an intense flare from blazar 3C 279 that exceeded the steady flux of the source by a factor of forty for the duration of a day. We show that IceCube is likely to observe neutrinos, if indeed hadronic in origin, in data that are still blinded at this time. We also discuss other opportunities for coincident observations that include a recent flare from blazar 1ES 1959+650 that previously produced an intriguing coincidence with AMANDA observations.

astro-ph.HE↗

On the Charm Contribution to the Atmospheric Neutrino Flux

We revisit the estimate of the charm particle contribution to the atmospheric neutrino flux that is expected to dominate at high energies because long-lived high-energy pions and kaons interact in the atmosphere before decaying into neutrinos. We focus on the production of forward charm particles which carry a large fraction of the momentum of the incident proton. In the case of strange particles, such a component is familiar from the abundant production of $K^{+} Λ$ pairs. These forward charm particles can dominate the high-energy atmospheric neutrino flux in underground experiments. Modern collider experiments have no coverage in the very large rapidity region where charm forward pair production dominates. Using archival accelerator data as well as IceCube measurements of atmospheric electron and muon neutrino fluxes, we obtain an upper limit on forward $\bar{D}^0 Λ_c$ pair production and on the associated flux of high-energy atmospheric neutrinos. We conclude that the prompt flux may dominate the much-studied central component and represent a significant contribution to the TeV atmospheric neutrino flux. Importantly, it cannot accommodate the PeV flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, nor the excess of events observed by IceCube in the 30--200 TeV energy range indicating either structure in the flux of cosmic accelerators, or a presence of more than one component in the cosmic flux observed.

hep-ph↗

The slope, curvature, and higher parameters in $pp$ and $\bar{p}p$ scattering, and the extrapolation of measurements of $dσ(s,t)/dt$ to $t=0$

We study the effects of curvature in the expansion of the logarithm of the differential elastic scattering cross section near $t=0$ as $dσ(s,t)/dt=dσ(s,0)/dt\,\times\exp(Bt+Ct^2+Dt^3\cdots)$ in an eikonal model for $pp$ and $\bar{p}p$ scattering, and use the results to discuss the extrapolation of measured differential cross sections and the slope parameters $B$ to $t=-q^2=0$. We find that the curvature effects represented by the parameters $C$ and $D$, while small, lead to significant changes in the forward slope parameter relative to that determined in a purely exponential fit, and to smaller but still significant changes in the forward elastic scattering and total cross sections. Curvature effects should therefore be considered in future analyses or reanalyses of the elastic scattering data.

hep-ph↗

Comment on "More on Heisenberg's model for high energy nucleon-nucleon scattering"

We comment on the treatment of asymptotic black-disk scattering in a recent paper of Nastase and Sonnenschein, Phys.\ Rev.\ D\ {\bf 92}, 015028 (2015), on scattering in an updated version of the Heisenberg model which gives $pp$ and $\bar{p}p$ cross sections which increase at very high energies as $\ln^2s$. We show that the total cross section they define does not correspond to that measured in experiments, with the result that their limit for the ratio $σ_{\rm elas}/σ_{\rm tot}$ is too small by a factor 2. The correct ratio for black-disk scattering, $σ_{\rm elas}/σ_{\rm tot} \rightarrow 1/2$ for $s\rightarrow\infty$, is strongly supported by experiment.

hep-ph↗

Upper Limit on Forward Charm Contribution to Atmospheric Neutrino Flux

We revisit the calculation of charm particle production in hadron collisions, focusing on the production of charm particles that carry a large fraction of the momentum of the incident proton. In the case of strange particles, such a component is familiar from the abundant production of $K^+Λ$ pairs. Modern collider experiments have no coverage in the very large rapidity region where the forward pair production dominates. While forward charm particles are produced inside the LHC beampipe, they dominate the high-energy atmospheric neutrino flux in underground experiments because long-lived pions and kaons interact before decaying into neutrinos. The fragmentation of the spectator quark in the partonic subprocesses $qc \rightarrow qc$ and $gc \rightarrow gc$ is responsible for the forward component of charm production in perturbative QCD. We use this phenomenological framework to construct a charm cross section that saturates available accelerator and cosmic ray data, i.e., it represents an upper limit on the normalization of the charm cross section that cannot be reliably calculated because the charm mass is much smaller than the center-of-mass energy. Where the highest energy IceCube observations are concerned, we conclude that the upper limit on the flux of neutrinos from forward charm production may dominate the much-studied central component. It may therefore also represent a significant contribution to the TeV atmospheric neutrino flux but cannot accommodate the PeV flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos observed by IceCube, or even the excess of events observed in the 30 TeV energy range.

hep-ph↗

Comprehensive fits to high energy data for $σ$, $ρ$, and $B$ and the asymptotic black-disk limit

We demonstrate that the entirety of the data on proton--proton and antiproton--proton forward scattering between 6 GeV and 57 TeV center-of-mass energy is sufficient to show that $σ_{\rm elas}/σ_{\rm tot} \rightarrow 1/2$, and that $8πB/σ_{\rm tot}\rightarrow 1$ at very high energies, where $B$ the forward slope parameter for the differential elastic scattering cross sections. The relations demonstrate convincingly that the asymptotic $pp$ and $\bar{p}p$ scattering amplitudes approach those of scattering from a black disk. This result obviously has implications for any new physics that modifies the forward scattering amplitudes.

hep-ph↗

Eikonal fit to $pp$ and $\bar{p}p$ scattering and the edge in the scattering amplitude

We make a detailed eikonal fit to current data on the total and elastic scattering cross sections, the ratios $ρ$ of the real to the imaginary parts of the forward elastic scattering amplitudes, and the logarithmic slopes $B$ of the differential cross sections $dσ/dt$ at $t=0$, for proton-proton and antiproton-proton scattering at center-of-mass energies $W$ from 5 GeV to 57 TeV. The fit allows us to investigate the structure of the eikonal amplitudes in detail, including the impact-parameter structure of the energy-independent edge in the scattering amplitude shown to exist by Block {\em et al.} \cite{edge}. We show that the edge region has an essentially fixed shape with a peak at approximately the "black disk" radius $R_{\rm tot}=\sqrt{σ_{\rm tot}/2π}$ of the scattering amplitude, a constant width $t_{\rm edge}\approx 1$ fm, and migrates to larger impact parameters with increasing energy proportionally to $R_{\rm tot}$. We comment on possible physical mechanisms which could lead to the edge. We show that the eikonal results for the cross sections and $ρ$ values are described to high accuracy by analytic expressions of the forms used in earlier analyses by Block and Halzen, and extend the result to the elastic-scattering slope parameter $B$. These expressions provide simple extrapolations of the results to much higher energies. Finally, we calculate the survival probabilities for large rapidity gaps in the scattering.

hep-ph↗

The High-Energy Behavior of Photon, Neutrino and Proton Cross Sections

By combining the color dipole model of the nucleon with the assumption that cross sections behave asymptotically as $\ln^2(s)$, we are able to describe the data for photon, neutrino and hadron interactions with protons at all energies, $s$ is the center-of-mass energy of the interacting particles. Specifically, we extrapolate the perturbative QCD calculations into the regime of small fractional parton momenta $x$ using a color dipole description of the proton target that guarantees an asymptotic $\ln^2(s)$ behavior of all cross sections. The ambiguity of introducing a parametrization associated with the dipole approximation is mitigated by the requirement that the saturation of the small-$x$ structure functions produces $\ln^2(s)$-behaved asymptotic cross sections, in agreement with the data. The same formalism allows us to calculate the cross section for the hadronic pair production of charm particles. The results, in particular those for the high-energy neutrino and charm cross sections, are relevant for evaluating the sensitivity as well as the background in neutrino telescopes.

hep-ph↗

Evidence for a Constant `Edge' in Proton-Proton Scattering at Very High Energies

Accurate fits to $pp$ and $\bar pp$ cross section data up to Tevatron energies, incorporating the constraints imposed by analyticity and unitarity, successfully predict the results of recent LHC and cosmic ray measurements, and suggest that the cross sections approach a black disc limit asymptotically. The approach to the limit is, however, very slow. We present a simple geometric picture which explains these features in a natural way. A black disc of logarithmically growing radius is supplemented by a soft `edge' whose properties are invariant with energy. The constancy of the edge results in the prediction that the quantity $(σ^{TOT}-2σ^{El})/\surdσ^{TOT}$ approaches a constant at high energy. Using the existing fits, this prediction appears to be verified. The value of the limiting constant allows an estimate of the thickness of the edge, which turns out to be on the order of $1\,{\rm fm}$. One thus arrives at a picture where the proton-proton scattering at lower energies is dominated by what becomes the edge, while at higher energies it is dominated by the disc. The crossover between the two regimes is only at $\surd s\geq $ 10 TeV, accounting for the slow approach to asymptotic behavior. Some questions as to the nature of the edge are discussed.

hep-ph↗

Pinpointing Extragalactic Neutrino Sources in Light of Recent IceCube Observations

The IceCube Collaboration has recently reported the observation of a flux of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. The angular distribution of events is consistent with an isotropic arrival direction of neutrinos which is expected for an extragalactic origin. We estimate the prospects of detecting individual neutrino sources from a quasi-diffuse superposition of many extragalactic sources at the level of the IceCube observation. Our analysis takes into account ensemble variations of the source distribution as well as the event statistics of individual sources. We show that IceCube in its present configuration is sensitive to rare < 10^-8 Mpc^-3 yr^-1 transient source classes within 5 years of operation via the observation of multiplets. Identification of time-independent sources is more challenging due to larger backgrounds. We estimate that during the same period IceCube is sensitive to sparse sources with densities of < 10^-6 Mpc^-3 via association of events with the closest 100 sources of an ensemble. We show that a next-generation neutrino observatory with 5 times the effective area of IceCube and otherwise similar detector performance would increase the sensitivity to source densities and rates by about two orders of magnitude.

astro-ph.HE↗

CosPA2013: Outlook

Outlook talk presented at the 10th International Symposium on Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics (CosPA2013)

hep-ph↗

The highest energy neutrinos: first evidence for cosmic origin

Developments in neutrino astronomy have been to a great extent motivated by the search for the sources of the cosmic rays, leading at a very early stage to the concept of a cubic kilometer neutrino detector. Almost four decades later such an instrument, IceCube, is taking data and has produced the first evidence for a flux of high-energy neutrinos of cosmic origin. After a brief review of the history of the field, we will introduce IceCube and describe the first analysis of data taken with the completed instrument. The atmospheric neutrino flux cannot accommodate an excess of 28 neutrinos observed with energies above 60 TeV. We will briefly speculate on the origin of these events. Readers interested specifically in IceCube results may refer directly to section 3.

hep-ph↗

Charge Asymmetry of Weak Boson Production at the LHC and the Charm Content of the Proton

We investigate the production of the weak bosons $W^+$, $W^-$ and $Z$ at the LHC as a function of their rapidity, reconstructed {\it experimentally} from their leptonic decay. We show that the measurements provide a powerful tool for constraining the parton distribution functions, as was already the case for the lower energy $p\bar{p}$ collider data. We study the charge asymmetry determining the $u$ and $d$ distribution functions using the reconstructed $W^+$, $W^-$ rapidities. We also show how the ratio of the $W$ and $Z$ boson rapidity distributions directly probes the charm quark distribution function of the proton.

hep-ph↗

IceCube: Neutrino Physics from GeV - PeV

An update on recent discoveries by the IceCube project, which transforms approximately one cubic kilometer of natural Antarctic ice into a Cherenkov detector. This paper will be submitted to SLAC for inclusion in the Snowmass2013 proceedings

astro-ph.HE↗

Exploring ν_τ- ν_s mixing with cascade events in DeepCore

The atmospheric neutrino data collected by the IceCube experiment and its low-energy extension DeepCore provide a unique opportunity to probe the neutrino sector of the Standard Model. In the low energy range the experiment have observed neutrino oscillations, and the high energy data are especially sensitive to signatures of new physics in the neutrino sector. In this context, we previously demonstrated the unmatched potential of the experiment to reveal the existence of light sterile neutrinos. The studies are routinely performed in the simplest 3+1 model concentrating on disappearance of muon neutrinos of TeV energy as a result of their mixing with a sterile neutrino. We here extend this analysis to include cascade events that are secondary electromagnetic and hadronic showers produced by neutrinos of all flavors. We find that it is possible to probe the complete parameter space of 3+1 model, including the poorly constrained mixing of the sterile neutrino to tau neutrinos. We show that $ν_τ-ν_s$ mixing results into a unique signature in the data that will allow IceCube to obtain constraints well below the current upper limits.

hep-ph↗