Speaker
Mr
Edoardo Vitagliano
(Max Planck Institute for Physics)
Description
We calculate the solar neutrino and antineutrino flux in the keV energy range. The dominant thermal source processes are photoproduction ($\gamma e\rightarrow e\nu\bar{\nu}$), bremsstrahlung ($e+Ze\rightarrow Ze+e+\nu\bar{\nu}$), plasmon decay ($\gamma\rightarrow \nu\bar{\nu}$), and $\nu\bar{\nu}$ emission in free-bound and bound-bound transitions of partially ionized elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. These latter processes dominate in the energy range of a few keV and thus carry information about the solar metallicity. To calculate their rate we use libraries of monochromatic photon radiative opacities in analogy to a previous calculation of solar axion emission. Our overall flux spectrum and many details differ significantly from previous works. While this low-energy flux is not measurable with present-day technology, it could become a significant background for future direct searches for keV-mass sterile neutrino dark matter.
Primary author
Mr
Edoardo Vitagliano
(Max Planck Institute for Physics)
Co-authors
Prof.
Georg Raffelt
(Max Planck Institute for Physics)
Dr
Javier Redondo
(Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Zaragoza)
