High energy neutrinos from charm in astrophysical sources

Abstract

Charm production gives rise to a flux of very high energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources with jets driven by central engines, such as gamma ray bursts or supernovae with jets. The neutrino flux from semi-leptonic decays of charmed mesons is subject to much less hadronic and radiative cooling than the conventional flux from pion and kaon decays and therefore has a dominant contribution at higher energies, of relevance to future ultrahigh energy neutrino experiments.

Comments: 6 pages, 4 figures. Modified results to account for maximum proton energies, paper somewhat extended, several points clarified. Version to appear in Phys. Rev. D