DIS-secting the universe with high-energy neutrinos

Abstract

We revisit the impact of electroweak (EW) radiative corrections on the kinematic distributions of charged leptons in neutrino-induced charged-current (CC) deep inelastic scattering (DIS). These corrections are particularly relevant for observables sensitive to collinear photon radiation, such as the energy spectrum of high-energy muons detected in neutrino telescopes. To study these effects, we implement full next-to-leading order (NLO) EW corrections to CC DIS in a flexible Monte Carlo framework, supplemented with higher-order logarithmically enhanced final-state QED radiation and coherent scattering contributions. We compare our results to exclusive NLO QCD plus parton shower (PS) predictions obtained with an existing $\texttt{POWHEG-BOX}$ event generator, examining different PS models and settings. Based on this comparison, we provide recommendations for the use of the $\texttt{POWHEG-BOX}$ event generator in experimental analyses. We further assess the impact of radiative corrections on the correlation between the observed muon energy and the incoming neutrino energy, and on the mean inelasticity averaged over a realistic neutrino flux. These corrections can exceed $10\%$, and above about $10^4\,{\rm GeV}$ they receive sizeable contributions from photon-initiated and coherent $W$-boson production, which are not included in the event generator.