Solar neutrinos at keV energies: thermal flux

Abstract

The neutrino flux at Earth is dominated in the keV energy range by the neutrinos produced in the Sun through thermal processes, namely photo production, bremsstrahlung, plasmon decay, and emission in free-bound and bound-bound transitions of partially ionized elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. Such a component of the neutrino flux is conspicuously absent from popular analyses of the all-sources spectrum at Earth, whereas if detected it could be a source of information about solar physics. Moreover, it would be the relevant background for keV-mass sterile neutrino dark matter direct searches.

Comments: Comments added. 5 pages, 3 figures. Prepared for the proceedings of the conference TAUP 2017