Uncertainty of the Solar Neutrino Energy Spectrum

TL;DR

This paper investigates the uncertainties in the solar neutrino energy spectrum measured by Super-Kamiokande, focusing on how the energy resolution tail could explain observed excesses at high energies.

Contribution

It reexamines the impact of the energy resolution tail on the observed neutrino spectrum, proposing it as a potential explanation for high-energy excesses.

Findings

Energy resolution tail can cause significant excesses in high-energy bins.

Gaussian tail uncertainty is only a few percent at Super-Kamiokande.

Power-law decay tail may explain the observed anomalies.

Abstract

The solar neutrino spectrum measured by the Super-Kamiokande shows an excess in high energy bins, which may be explained by vacuum oscillation solution or $hep$ neutrino effect. Here we reconsider an uncertainty of the data caused by the tail of the energy resolution function. Events observed at energy higher than 13.5 MeV are induced by the tail of the resolution. At Super-Kamiokande precision level this uncertainty is no more than few percent within a Gaussian tail. But a power-law decay tail at 3 $\sigma$ results considerable excesses in these bins, which may be another possible explanation of the anomaly in 708d(825d) data.