Speaker
Description
We calculate the solar neutrino and antineutrino flux in the keV energy range. The dominant thermal source processes are photo production (γe → eνν ̄), bremsstrahlung (e + Ze → Ze + e + νν ̄), plasmon decay (γ → νν ̄), and pair emission in free-bound and bound-bound transitions of partially ionized elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. To calculate the latter we use libraries of monochromatic photon radiative opacities in analogy to a previous calculation of solar axion emission. Our overall flux 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.
