Solar neutrino interactions: Using charged currents at SNO to tell neutral currents at Super-Kamiokande

Abstract

In the presence of flavor oscillations, muon and tau neutrinos can contribute to the Super-Kamiokande (SK) solar neutrino signal through the neutral current process ν_{μ,τ} e^{-}\to ν_{μ,τ} e^{-}. We show how to separate the ν_e and ν_{μ,τ} event rates in SK in a model independent way, by using the rate of the charged current process ν_e d \to p p e^{-} from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) experiment, with an appropriate choice of the SK and SNO energy thresholds. Under the additional hypothesis of no oscillations into sterile states, we also show how to determine the absolute ^{8}B neutrino flux from the same data set, independently of the ν_e survival probability.

14 pages (RevTeX), incl. 3 figures (epsf), submitted to Phys. ReV. D