On Ultrahigh-energy Neutrino Scattering

Abstract

We predict the neutrino-nucleon cross section at ultrahigh energies relevant in connection with the search for high-energy cosmic neutrinos. Our investigation, employing the color-dipole picture, among other things allows us to quantitatively determine which fraction of the ultrahigh-energy neutrino-nucleon cross section stems from the saturation versus the color-transparency region. We disagree with various results in the literature that predict a strong suppression of the neutrino-nucleon cross section at neutrino energies above $E \cong 10^9 GeV$. Suppression in the sense of a diminished increase of the neutrino-nucleon cross section with energy only starts to occur at neutrino energies beyond $E \cong 10^{14} GeV$.