Quark mass effects in high energy neutrino nucleon scattering

Understand

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.