Probing strong dynamics with cosmic neutrinos

Understand

IceCube has observed 80 astrophysical neutrino candidates in the energy range 0.02 < E_\nu/PeV < 2.

• Deep inelastic scattering of these neutrinos with nucleons on Antarctic ice sheet probe center-of-mass energies $\sqrt{s} \sim$ 1 TeV.
• By comparing the rates for two classes of observable events, any departure from the benchmark (perturbative QCD) neutrino-nucleon cross section can be constrained.
• Using the projected sensitivity of South Pole next generation neutrino telescope we show that this facility will provide a unique probe of strong interaction dynamics.