https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-5770-8
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
The spectroscopy of solar sterile neutrinos
1
Departamento de Física, Instituto Superior Técnico-IST, Centro de Astrofísica e Gravitação-CENTRA, Universidade de Lisboa-UL, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal
2
Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS & UPMC, Sorbonne Universités, 98 bis bd Arago, 75014, Paris, France
* e-mail: ilidio.lopes@tecnico.ulisboa.pt
Received:
4
September
2017
Accepted:
19
March
2018
Published online:
21
April
2018
We predict the sterile neutrino spectrum of some of the key solar nuclear reactions and discuss the possibility of these being observed by the next generation of solar neutrino experiments. By using an up-to-date standard solar model with good agreement with current helioseismology and solar neutrino flux data sets, we found that from solar neutrino fluxes arriving on Earth only 3–4% correspond to the sterile neutrino. The most intense solar sources of sterile neutrinos are the pp and 
nuclear reactions with a total flux of 
and 
, followed by the 
and 
nuclear reactions with a total flux of 
and 
. Moreover, we compute the sterile neutrino spectra of the nuclear proton–proton nuclear reactions – pp, hep and 
and the carbon–nitrogen–oxygen – , and 
and the spectral lines of .
© The Author(s), 2018
