The observation of electromagnetic radiation from radio to γ-ray wavelengths has provided a wealth of information about the Universe. However, at PeV (1015 eV) energies and above, most of the Universe is impenetrable to photons. New messengers, namely cosmic neutrinos, are needed to explore the most extreme environments of the Universe where black holes, neutron stars, and stellar explosions transform gravitational energy into non-thermal cosmic rays. These energetic particles have millions of times higher energies than those produced in the most powerful particle accelerators on Earth. As neutrinos can escape from regions otherwise opaque to radiation, they allow an unique view deep into exploding stars and the vicinity of the event horizons of black holes. The discovery of cosmic neutrinos with IceCube has opened this new window on the Universe. IceCube has been successful in finding first evidence for cosmic particle acceleration in the jet of an active galactic nucleus. Yet, ultimately, its sensitivity is too limited to detect even the brightest neutrino sources with high significance, or to detect populations of less luminous sources. In this white paper, we present an overview of a next-generation instrument, IceCube-Gen2, which will sharpen our understanding of the processes and environments that govern the Universe at the highest energies. IceCube-Gen2 is designed to: (a) Resolve the high-energy neutrino sky from TeV to EeV energies (b) Investigate cosmic particle acceleration through multi-messenger observations (c) Reveal the sources and propagation of the highest energy particles in the Universe (d) Probe fundamental physics with high-energy neutrinos IceCube-Gen2 will enhance the existing IceCube detector at the South Pole. It will increase the annual rate of observed cosmic neutrinos by a factor of ten compared to IceCube, and will be able to detect sources five times fainter than its predecessor. Furthermore, through the addition of a radio array, IceCube-Gen2 will extend the energy range by several orders of magnitude compared to IceCube. Construction will take 8 years and cost about $350M. The goal is to have IceCube-Gen2 fully operational by 2033. IceCube-Gen2 will play an essential role in shaping the new era of multi-messenger astronomy, fundamentally advancing our knowledge of the high-energy Universe. This challenging mission can be fully addressed only through the combination of the information from the neutrino, electromagnetic, and gravitational wave emission of high-energy sources, in concert with the new survey instruments across the electromagnetic spectrum and gravitational wave detectors which will be available in the coming years.

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We present a new calculation of the cross sections for charged current (CC) and neutral current (NC) νN andνN interactions in the neutrino energy range 10 4 < Eν < 10 12 GeV using the most recent MSTW parton distribution functions (PDFs), MSTW 2008. We also present the associated uncertainties propagated from the PDFs, as well as parametrizations of the cross section central values, their uncertainty bounds, and the inelasticity distributions for ease of use in Monte Carlo simulations. For the latter we only provide parametrizations for energies above 10 7 GeV. Finally, we assess the feasibility of future neutrino experiments to constrain the νN cross section in the ultrahigh energy (UHE) regime using a technique that is independent of the flux spectrum of incident neutrinos. A significant deviation from the predicted Standard Model cross sections could be an indication of new physics, such as extra space-time dimensions, and we present expected constraints on such models as a function of the number of events observed in a future subterranean neutrino detector.

We report on studies of the viability and sensitivity of the Askaryan Radio Array (ARA), a new initiative to develop a Teraton-scale ultra-high energy neutrino detector in deep, radio-transparent ice near Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole. An initial prototype ARA detector system was installed in January 2011, and has been operating continuously since then. We report on studies of the background radio noise levels, the radio clarity of the ice, and the estimated sensitivity of the planned ARA array given these results, based on the first five months of operation. Anthropogenic radio interference in the vicinity of the South Pole currently leads to a few-percent loss of data, but no overall effect on the background noise levels, which are dominated by the thermal noise floor of the cold polar ice, and galactic noise at lower frequencies. We have also successfully detected signals originating from a 2.5 km deep impulse generator at a distance of over 3 km from our prototype detector, confirming prior estimates of kilometer-scale attenuation lengths for cold polar ice. These are also the first such measurements for propagation over such large slant distances in ice. Based on these data, ARA-37, the 200 km 2 array now under construction, will achieve the highest sensitivity of any planned or existing neutrino detector in the 10 16 − 10 19 eV energy range.

We report the first measurements of inclusive W and Z boson cross sections times the corresponding leptonic branching ratios for pp collisions at √ s = 1.96 TeV based on the decays of the W and Z bosons into electrons and muons. The data were recorded with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab 4Tevatron and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 72.0 ± 4.3 pb −1 . We test e-µ lepton universality in W decays by measuring the ratio of the W → µν to W → eν cross sections and determine a value of 0.991 ± 0.004(stat.) ± 0.011(syst.) for the ratio of W −ℓ−ν couplings (gµ/ge). Since there is no sign of non-universality, we combine our cross section measurements in the different lepton decay modes and obtain σW ×Br(pp → W → ℓν) = 2.749 ± 0.010(stat.) ± 0.053(syst.) ± 0.165(lum.) nb and σ γ * /Z × Br(pp → γ * /Z → ℓℓ) = 254.9 ± 3.3(stat.) ± 4.6(syst.) ± 15.2(lum.) pb for dilepton pairs in the mass range between 66 GeV/c 2 and 116 GeV/c 2 . We compute the ratio R of the W → ℓν to Z → ℓℓ cross sections taking all correlations among channels into account and obtain R = 10.84 ± 0.15(stat.) ± 0.14(syst.) including a correction for the virtual photon exchange component in our measured γ * /Z → ℓℓ cross section. Based on the measured value of R, we extract values for the W leptonic branching ratio, Br(W → ℓν) = 0.1082 ± 0.0022; the total width of the W boson, Γ(W ) = 2092 ± 42 MeV; and the ratio of W and Z boson total widths, Γ(W )/Γ(Z) = 0.838 ± 0.017. In addition, we use our extracted value of Γ(W ) whose value depends on various electroweak parameters and certain CKM matrix elements to constrain the Vcs CKM matrix element, |Vcs| = 0.976± 0.030.