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# Solar neutrino event spectra: Tuning SNO to equalize Super-Kamiokande

## I Introduction

The origin of the deficit of solar neutrino events  with respect to the standard solar model (SSM) predictions  is expected to be clarified by the measurement of events induced by 8B neutrinos in the Super-Kamiokande (SK)  and Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO)  experiments.

The SK experiment has presented accurate, high-statistics measurements of the energy spectrum of electrons  produced by the elastic scattering (ES) reaction

$$\nu _{e,a}+e^{}\nu _{e,a}+e^{},$$
(1)
which can proceed either through $`\nu _e`$ or, in the presence of flavor oscillations, also through the other two active neutrinos $`\nu _a`$ $`(a=\mu ,\tau )`$, with cross sections $`\sigma ^e`$ and $`\sigma ^a`$, respectively.

The SNO experiment has presented preliminary results of the energy spectrum of electrons  produced by the charged-current (CC) absorption reaction

$$\nu _e+dp+p+e^{},$$
(2)
which can proceed only through $`\nu _e`$, with cross section $`\sigma ^c`$.

Both in SK and in SNO, the neutrino interaction process, as well as the subsequent electron detection, tends to degrade the original $`\nu `$-spectrum information in the final $`e`$-spectrum, according to the following “energy flow”:

$$E_\nu \mathrm{spectrum}\stackrel{\mathrm{i}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{t}.}{}E_e^{}\mathrm{spectrum}\stackrel{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{t}.}{}E_e\mathrm{spectrum},$$
(3)
where $`E_\nu `$ is the $`\nu `$ energy, $`E_e^{}`$ is the total (true) electron energy, and $`E_e`$ is the total (measured) electron energy. The latter two energies are generally different, as a consequence of the finite detector energy resolution  associated to the photon counting statistics. As far as one is concerned with the electron event rates in a given energy range $`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$, the above energy transfer can be completely characterized in terms of the so-called response function $`\rho (E_\nu )`$ associated to such range and to the 8B neutrino source .***The response function basically represents the (unoscillated) spectrum of interacted neutrinos, in contrast with the unobservable spectrum of emitted solar neutrinos .

In this work, we analyze the SK and SNO response function to 8B neutrinos in specific energy ranges. In Sec. II we present our basic result: for each spectrum bin $`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ in SK (above 8 MeV), we find a suitable energy range $`[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ in SNO (above 5.1 MeV)In the context of this paper, it is useful to adopt a different notation for the observed electron energy in SK $`(E_e)`$ and SNO $`(\stackrel{~}{E}_e)`$. where the corresponding SK and SNO response functions are equal within a few percent. As a consequence of such approximate “equalization”, we show in Sec. III that, in the presence of active neutrino oscillations, the SK and SNO event rates in the corresponding energy ranges are linked by a one-to-one (linear) relation, independently of the functional form of the oscillation probability. Moreover, such relation allows the determination of the absolute 8B $`\nu `$ flux. In perspective, the SK-SNO spectral equalization will be useful to cross-check possible (non)observations of spectral deviations in the two experiments, as well as to determine the absolute 8B $`\nu `$ flux independently of the neutral-current (NC) SNO measurement (to be performed in the near future ). At present, pending both NC data and official CC data from SNO, we use in Sec. III the SK-SNO relation to “predict” the CC spectrum in SNO, on the basis of the current SK energy spectrum. In Sec. IV we show that the previous results are not spoiled by the possible contribution of hep neutrinos (within present phenomenological limits). Finally, we discuss in Sec. V some modifications or limitations of our results in the presence of sterile $`\nu `$ oscillations and of relatively large Earth matter effects. Conclusions are presented in Sec. VI.

The present work builds upon a previous paper  in which a similar strategy was devised to put in one-to-one relation the total event rates of SK and SNO, rather than their spectral rates in each energy bin. The reader is referred to the bibliography in  for earlier (but less realistic) attempts to find relations between SK and SNO (spectral) rates in a model-independent way.

## II SK and SNO RESPONSE FUNCTIONS

### A Definitions

As mentioned in the Introduction, the response function $`\rho (E_\nu )`$ characterizes the interaction+detection process for a given solar $`\nu `$ source (8B neutrinos in our case) and for a given electron energy interval ($`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ in SK and $`[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ in SNO). The three classes of response functions relevant for our work are

$`\rho _B^e(E_\nu ,[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}])`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{SK}(\nu _e,e)\mathrm{ES}\mathrm{response}\mathrm{function},`$ (4)
$`\rho _B^a(E_\nu ,[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}])`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{SK}(\nu _a,e)\mathrm{ES}\mathrm{response}\mathrm{function}(a=\mu ,\tau ),`$ (5)
$`\rho _B^c(E_\nu ,[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}])`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{SNO}(\nu _e,d)\mathrm{CC}\mathrm{response}\mathrm{function}.`$ (6)
Such functions are defined in terms of the standard 8B energy spectrum $`\lambda _B(E_\nu )`$ , of the differential cross sections ($`d\sigma ^e/dE_e^{}`$ and $`d\sigma ^a/dE^{}e`$ for elastic scattering  and $`d\sigma ^c/d\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{}`$ for CC absorption ), and of the detector resolution functions ($`R_{\mathrm{SK}}`$  and $`R_{\mathrm{SNO}}`$ ):

$`\rho _B^e`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _B(E_\nu ){\displaystyle _{E_e^{\mathrm{min}}}^{E_e^{\mathrm{max}}}}𝑑E_e{\displaystyle _0^{E_\nu }}𝑑E_e^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^e(E_\nu ,E_e^{})}{dE_e^{}}}R_{\mathrm{SK}}(E_e,E_e^{})}{\sigma _B^e[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]}},`$ (7)
$`\rho _B^a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _B(E_\nu ){\displaystyle _{E_e^{\mathrm{min}}}^{E_e^{\mathrm{max}}}}𝑑E_e{\displaystyle _0^{E_\nu }}𝑑E_e^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^a(E_\nu ,E_e^{})}{dE_e^{}}}R_{\mathrm{SK}}(E_e,E_e^{})}{\sigma _B^a[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]}},`$ (8)
$`\rho _B^c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _B(E_\nu ){\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}}}^{\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}}}𝑑\stackrel{~}{E}_e{\displaystyle _0^{E_\nu }}𝑑\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^c(\stackrel{~}{E}_\nu ,\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{})}{d\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{}}}R_{\mathrm{SNO}}(\stackrel{~}{E}_e,\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{})}{\sigma _B^c[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]}},`$ (9)
where the denominators $`\sigma _B^{e,a,c}`$ represent the 8B neutrino cross sections for producing an electron with observed energy in the specified range, as obtained by integrating over $`E_\nu `$ the corresponding numerators in Eqs. (7)–(9).It follows that the functions $`\rho _B^{e,a,c}(E_\nu )`$ in Eqs. (7)–(9) are normalized to unity.

Throughout this paper, the response functions are calculated through numerical integration of the above expressions, Eqs. (7)–(9). Alternatively, the response functions can be obtained through MonteCarlo (MC) simulations. In particular, the function $`\rho _B^e`$ is just the normalized $`E_\nu `$ spectrum (histogram) of the 8B neutrinos originating a simulated electron with a measured energy $`E_e[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ in the SK detector, in the absence of oscillations; analogously for $`\rho _B^c`$ in SNO. The function $`\rho _B^a`$ can be obtained in the same way as $`\rho _B^e`$, provided that the differential cross section $`d\sigma ^e/dE_e^{}`$ is replaced by $`d\sigma ^a/dE_e^{}`$ in the MC simulation. Eventually, if our results were adopted by the SK and SNO collaborations in a joint SK-SNO analysis, the corresponding energy ranges and response functions should be optimally calculated and compared through MC simulations, so as to include also those minor detector features (small energy variations of efficiencies, slightly nongaussian resolutions, etc.) which require the knowledge of experimental details beyond the scope of this paper.

### B Correspondence between SK and SNO energy ranges

In  it has been shown that the SK and SNO response functions for the whole spectrum can be equalized, to a good approximation, by an appropriate choice of the corresponding electron energy thresholds. In this work we make an important further step, by showing that the SK response function in each bin $`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ (above 8 MeV) is approximately equalized by the SNO response function in a suitably chosen range $`[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$,

$$\rho _B^{e,a}(E_\nu ,[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}])\rho _B^c(E_\nu ,[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]).$$
(10)
In this way one can extend the SK-SNO correspondence from total rates  to energy spectra.

Technically, for each SK bin $`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$, we have determined the extrema of the SNO range $`[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ by requiring minimization of the integral difference

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=𝑑E_\nu |\rho _B^e(E_\nu )\rho _B^c(E_\nu )|,$$
(11)
which would be zero if Eq. (10) were exactly satisfied. The results are given in Table I and in Figs. 1 and 2, as we now discuss.

Table I gives, for each SK spectrum bin above 8 MeV (labelled by a sequential number $`i=1,2,\mathrm{},13`$), the corresponding energy range $`[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ in SNO (third column) where the SK-SNO response function difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (fourth column) is minimized. In addition, the fifth and sixth column present the 8B neutrino cross sections $`\sigma _B^e`$ and $`\sigma _B^a`$ $`(a=\mu ,\tau )`$ for electron production in the SK range $`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ (together with their ratio in the seventh column), while the last column presents the 8B neutrino cross sections $`\sigma _B^c`$ for CC electron production in the corresponding SNO range $`[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$, as defined in Eqs. (7)–(9) and related comments. Figure 1 shows graphically the SK-SNO energy range correspondence expressed by the first three columns of Table I.§§§The SK energy bins below 8 MeV are not considered in Fig. 1 and in Table I, since the corresponding SNO energy ranges would be (partly) below the expected SNO threshold  of $`5`$ MeV.

Figure 2 shows the approximate equality between the SK response functions $`\rho _B^{e,a}`$ (solid curves) and the corresponding SNO response functions $`\rho _B^c`$ (dotted curves) in a representative subset of energy ranges. In the worst case ($`i=13`$, highest energy range) the integral difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ does not exceed $`10\%`$, and it is often much smaller in other ranges. It can be seen, for instance, that $`\rho _B^e`$ for the interval $`E_e[10,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10.5}]`$ MeV in SK ($`i=5`$) is almost coincident with $`\rho _B^c`$ for the interval $`\stackrel{~}{E}_e[7.1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}11.75}]`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ being as small as $`2.1\%`$ (see Table I).Notice that the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ in Table I are calculated with the input ingredients described in Sec. II.A. Should such ingredients (e.g., the SNO resolution function) change, the extrema of the SNO ranges $`[\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{max}}]_i`$ minimizing $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ (and the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ themselves) should be recalculated for any $`i`$-th interval. In addition, the functions $`\rho _B^e`$ and $`\rho _B^a`$ in Fig. 1 are graphically indistinguishable (they practically coincide with one and the same solid curve for any range).

We can summarize such results by stating that there is a set $`(i=1,2,\mathrm{},13)`$ of SK and SNO ranges ($`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ and $`[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$, respectively) where the two experiments are characterized by very similar responses to 8B neutrinos,

$`\rho _B^e(E_\nu ,[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]_i)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _B^a(E_\nu ,[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]_i),`$ (12)
$`\rho _B^e(E_\nu ,[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]_i)`$ $``$ $`\rho _B^c(E_\nu ,[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]_i).`$ (13)
A few comments are in order. The response function shape is governed by the electron energy window $`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ and by three functions: the $`\nu `$ source spectrum $`\lambda _B`$, the normalized differential cross section $`\sigma _B^1d\sigma _B/dE_e^{}`$, and the detector resolution $`R(E_e^{},E_e)`$ \[see Eqs. (7)-(9)\]. Both in SK and in SNO, the bell-shaped functions $`\lambda _B`$ and $`R`$ render the response functions also bell-shaped, independently of the functional form of the differential cross section. Such functional form, together with the chosen electron energy window, affects instead the “width at half maximum” of the response function. In SK, the normalized cross sections as a function of the electron energy, $`(\sigma _B^e)^1d\sigma _B^e/dE_e^{}`$ and $`(\sigma _B^a)^1d\sigma _B^a/dE_e^{}`$, are both very similar for any fixed neutrino energy $`E_\nu `$ . Therefore, it is not surprising that Eq. (12) holds with very high accuracy.

Conversely, the approximate equality (13) is nontrivial. In fact, the shape of the normalized CC cross section in SNO is very different from the ES case, being peaked at a total electron energy only slight smaller (by $`1.5`$ MeV) than the $`\nu `$ energy, with a long tail at low $`\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{}`$ . Therefore, if identical electron energy ranges were taken for SK and SNO, $`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}]=[\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$, the SNO response function would be much narrower (and peaked to slightly higher neutrino energies) than the SK response function (e.g., compare Figs. 2 and 7 in ). The functional difference in the cross sections and in their $`Q`$-values (and also, to same extent, the difference in the detectors resolution, $`R_{\mathrm{SK}}R_{\mathrm{SNO}}`$), render the SNO response functions tipically different from those of SK. In order to achieve an approximate equalization, as the one shown in Fig. 2, one needs $`[E_e^{\mathrm{min}},E_e^{\mathrm{max}}][\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ and, in particular: (i) The SNO range width $`\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{max}}\stackrel{~}{E}_e^{\mathrm{min}}`$ must be larger than the SK range width $`E_e^{\mathrm{max}}E_e^{\mathrm{min}}`$ (so as to “broaden” the SNO response function); and (ii) The central value of the SNO range must be slightly lower than for SK (so as to tune the SNO response function peak at the same energy as in SK). Indeed, both conditions $`(i)`$ and $`(ii)`$ are fulfilled by the correlated SK-SNO energy ranges reported in Table I.The broadening of the SNO energy ranges with respect to SK implies that the intervals $`[\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{max}}]_i`$ are partly overlapping, as also evident from Fig. 1. We will discuss in the next section how to exploit the approximate equalization of the SK and SNO response functions in such correlated energy ranges.

## III Linking SK and SNO spectral rates for active $`\nu `$ oscillations

In this section we derive a linear relation between the SK and SNO event rates, valid for any of the thirteen couples of SK-SNO energy ranges reported in Table I, and for any functional form of the active neutrino oscillation probability. We start with the definition of the unoscillated rates, to which the experimental rates are usually normalized.

The standard 8B neutrino event rate (per target electron, in each $`i`$-th bin of the SK electron spectrum), in the absence of oscillations, is given by

$$R_{\mathrm{SK}}^{0,i}=\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^{e,i},$$
(14)
where the cross section $`\sigma _B^{e,i}`$ is given in the 5th column of Table I, while $`\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0`$ is the 8B neutrino flux from the reference standard solar model “BP 2000” , $`\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0=5.15\times 10^6`$ cm-2s-1. Analogously, the standard rate in the corresponding $`i`$-th energy range of the SNO spectrum is given by

$$R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^{0,i}=\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^{c,i},$$
(15)
where our evaluation of the cross section $`\sigma _B^{c,i}`$ is given in the last column of Table I.

In general, the event rates measured in SK and SNO can be different from the previous expectations, as a result of either neutrino oscillations or of deviations from the standard model predictions (or both). Here we assume active neutrino oscillations, described by a generic $`\nu _e`$ survival probability function $`P_{ee}(E_\nu )1`$. Deviations from the SSM flux are parametrized through an unknown factor $`f_B`$ multiplying the standard flux $`\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0`$. The event rates measured in SK and SNO should then be equal to

$`R_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$ $`=`$ $`R_{\mathrm{SK}}^{e,i}+R_{\mathrm{SK}}^{a,i}`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`f_B\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\left[\sigma _B^{e,i}P_{ee}_B^{e,i}+\sigma _B^{a,i}\left(1P_{ee}_B^{a,i}\right)\right],`$ (17)
and

$$R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i=f_B\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^{c,i}P_{ee}_B^{c,i},$$
(18)
respectively.\**\**\**In Eq. (17), the contributions from $`\nu _e`$ and $`\nu _a`$ ($`a=\mu ,\tau `$) are explicitly separated. The terms $`P_{ee}_B^{X,i}`$ ($`X=e,a,c`$) represent the average survival probability in the $`i`$-th bin, weighted by the appropriate 8B response function,

$$P_{ee}_B^{X,i}=𝑑E_\nu \rho _B^{X,i}(E_\nu )P_{ee}(E_\nu )(X=e,a,c).$$
(19)
Notice that Eqs (17)–(19) are exact, i.e., they are definitions which hold without any approximation.

We now apply the approximate equality of the SK and SNO 8B response functions expressed by Eqs. (12,13). Such equality implies that the average probabilities in (19) are also approximately equal to each other,

$$P_{ee}_B^iP_{ee}_B^{e,i}=P_{ee}_B^{a,i}P_{ee}_B^{c,i}(i=1,\mathrm{},13),$$
(20)
within errors smaller than the corresponding values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ \[Eq. (11)\] given in Table I:

$$\delta P_{ee}_B^i\left|𝑑E_\nu P_{ee}(E_\nu )[\rho ^{e,i}(E_\nu )_B\rho _B^{c,i}(E_\nu )]\right|𝑑E_\nu P_{ee}\left|\rho _B^{e,i}\rho _B^{c,i}\right|\mathrm{\Delta }_i.$$
(21)
It turns out that the error $`\delta P_{ee}_B^i`$ is often much smaller than its upper limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ for typical oscillation solutions of the solar neutrino problem, being usually of $`O(1\%)`$.††††††The error $`\delta P_{ee}`$ is smaller than $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ even when $`P_{ee}`$ is largest \[$`P_{ee}(E_\nu )1`$, no oscillations\] since the difference $`\rho ^{e,i}(E_\nu )_B\rho _B^{c,i}(E_\nu )`$ changes sign as a function of $`E_\nu `$ (Fig. 2). See also the related discussion in Sec. V of .

In other words, Eqs. (20,21) show that, for any $`i`$-th couple of SK and SNO energy intervals in Table I, the two experiments probe (within a typical accuracy of a percent) one and the same average survival probability $`P_{ee}_B^i`$ for 8B neutrinos. Therefore, the normalized SK and SNO $`i`$-th event rates can be written as

$`r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_{\mathrm{SK}}^i}{R_{\mathrm{SK}}^{0,i}}}=f_B\left[P_{ee}_B^i+{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _B^{a,i}}{\sigma _B^{e,i}}}(1P_{ee}_B^i)\right],`$ (22)
$`r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i}{R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^{0,i}}}=f_BP_{ee}_B^i.`$ (23)
An immediate consequence is that the presence of NC events in the $`i`$-th SK bin, due to $`\nu _a`$ interactions ($`a=\mu ,\tau `$), can emerge in a model-independent way by observing $`r_{\mathrm{SK}}^ir_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i>0`$:

$$r_{\mathrm{SK}}^ir_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i>0\nu _e\nu _{\mu ,\tau }\mathrm{channel}\mathrm{open}.$$
(24)
By eliminating $`P_{ee}_B^i`$ from Eqs. (22,23), a linear relation between the SK and SNO normalized rates emerges in each $`i`$-th couple of energy intervals $`(i=1,\mathrm{},13)`$:

$$r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i=r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i\left(1\frac{\sigma _B^{a,i}}{\sigma _B^{e,i}}\right)+f_B\frac{\sigma _B^{a,i}}{\sigma _B^{e,i}},$$
(25)
where the numerical values of $`\sigma _B^{a,i}/\sigma _B^{e,i}`$ are given in the 7th column of Table I. Notice that, since the above equation does not depend on the average probability $`P_{ee}_B^i`$, it holds for any functional form of the unaveraged survival probability $`P_{ee}(E_\nu )`$, i.e., for any active $`\nu `$ oscillation solution of the solar neutrino problem.

For the benefit of the reader, we have explicited Eq. (25) for each energy range in Table II. In all the equations listed in last column of such Table, the numerical coefficients are obviously very similar, since the ratio $`\sigma _B^{a,i}/\sigma _B^{e,i}`$ depends weakly on energy. The nonobvious fact is that such equations hold with good accuracy for any functional form of $`P_{ee}(E_\nu )`$, provided that the SNO energy ranges are chosen according the third column of Table II, for any fixed SK energy bin in the second column of the same table.

Equation (25), explicited in Table II, represents the main result of our work. It implies a one-to-one correspondence between thirteen couples of SK and SNO electron event rates induced by 8B neutrinos, independently of the specific active $`\nu `$ oscillation solution. It also explicitly incorporates possible deviations from the standard 8B flux through the factor $`f_B`$. The physical content of such result can be expressed as follows: for any $`i`$-th SK bin above 8 MeV, it turns out that there is a SNO energy interval where the average suppression ($`P_{ee}_B^i`$) of the $`\nu _e`$ flux due to oscillations is the same in the two experiments. Then, modulo factors as $`f_B`$ and $`\sigma _B^{a,i}/\sigma _B^{e,i}`$, one can get also the average suppression of the $`\nu _a`$ flux in SK ($`a=\mu ,\tau `$), and thus a link between the SK and SNO rates which is independent of the specific probability function $`P_{ee}(E_\nu )`$. We discuss now some possible applications of Eq. (25).

When official CC spectrum data (and thus the $`r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$’s) will be released by SNO, Eq. (25) will provide a determination of $`f_B`$, namely, of the absolute 8B flux at the Sun ($`f_B\times \mathrm{\Phi }_B^0`$). This fact was derived in  by using total SK and SNO rates with appropriate thresholds; our Table II generalizes such result to several energy spectrum ranges $`(i=1,\mathrm{},13)`$, so that the value of $`f_B`$ will be overconstrained. Notice that such constraints on $`f_B`$ will precede the independent determination of $`f_B`$ through the neutral current (NC) measurement planned in the near future in SNO .

Table II can also be used to cross-check possible spectral deviations (or their absence) in SK and SNO. If there is (not) a specific spectral distortion pattern $`\left\{r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i\mathrm{const}\right\}_{1i13}`$ in the SK spectrum above 8 MeV, a similar pattern must show up, independently of $`P_{ee}`$, in the sequence $`\left\{r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i\right\}_{1i13}`$ above 5.1 MeV in SNO (within uncertainties), according to Table II. Although it is intuitively clear that, if SK finds hints of spectral deviations, they should also be found by SNO , Table II provides a quantitative and well-defined way to make such cross-check, with the great advantage that no prior assumption is needed about the (unknown and unobservable) function $`P_{ee}(E_\nu )`$.

Pending official and definite CC spectrum data from SNO,‡‡‡‡‡‡Preliminary SNO results have been reported in . we use Table II to make a sort of “prediction” for the SNO spectrum, based on the measured SK spectrum . Figure 3 shows, in the upper panel, the normalized SK spectrum $`r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$  above 8 MeV. In each of the thirteen bins $`[E^{\mathrm{min}},E^{\mathrm{max}}]_i`$, the height of the grey box is equal to the $`\pm 1\sigma `$ statistical error $`\delta r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$. Inverting the relations in Table II, and assuming $`f_B=1`$, we propagate the SK data set $`\{r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i\pm \delta r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i\}_i`$ to a set of “predicted rates” $`\{r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i\pm \delta r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i\}_i`$ for SNO, in the corresponding energy intervals $`[\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{max}}]_i`$. The results are shown in the lower panel of Fig. 3, where the grey boxes have now a width determined by $`[\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{max}}]_i`$, and are thus partially overlapping. The meaning of such exercise is the following: In the presence of generic active $`\nu `$ oscillations, and for $`f_B=1`$, the measured SNO spectrum has to be consistent with the lower panel of Fig. 3, in order to be compatible with the present SK data and their $`\pm 1\sigma `$ (stat.) errors. The exercise in Fig. 3 can be repeated for $`f_B1`$ (not shown).

A final remark is in order, concerning the uncertainties affecting Eq. (25). Besides the experimental uncertainties in the SK and SNO rates, the main theoretical uncertainty is related to the absolute normalization of the $`\sigma ^c`$ cross section for CC interactions in SNO, which enters in the calculation of $`R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^{0,i}`$ \[Eq. (15)\] and thus propagates to the normalized rate $`r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$ \[Eq. (23)\]. Such error is estimated in  to be $`6\%`$ at $`1\sigma `$, by comparing different calculations; a more definite evaluation (and possibly a reduction) would be highly desirable. Compared with such uncertainty, the error induced by the approximate SK-SNO equalization \[Eq. (21)\] is typically less relevant, except perhaps in the worst case ($`i=13`$ energy range). Finally, notice that Table II involves thirteen couples of quantities, which have correlated errors. Besides the obvious bin-by-bin correlation of detector systematics in SK (and, independently, in SNO), the 8B spectrum shape uncertainty  represents a systematic error in common to SK and SNO. Moreover, since the energy ranges $`[\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{min}},\stackrel{~}{E}^{\mathrm{max}}]_i`$ partially overlap in SNO (Fig. 1), the corresponding SNO rates $`r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$ are also statistically correlated. All such “complications” of a joint SK-SNO analysis can actually be handled by standard statistical techniques (e.g., covariance matrices); however, pending detailed data and official evaluations of uncertainties in SNO, we do not furtherly explore this matter at present.

## IV Effect of hep neutrinos

In this section we show that our main result \[Eq. (25)\] is basically preserved in the presence of a nonnegligible hep neutrino contribution to the SK and SNO event rates, modulo a redefinition of the factor $`f_B`$.

The latest evaluation (BP 2000) of the standard hep flux is $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0=9.3\times 10^7`$ cm-2 s-1 , with large (unquoted) uncertainties. We parametrize such uncertainty by introducing (analogously to $`f_B`$) a free parameter $`f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}`$ multiplying $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0`$. The neutrino energy spectrum at the Sun (as far as SK and SNO are concerned) becomes then:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(E_\nu )=f_B\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\lambda _B(E_\nu )+f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0\lambda _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}(E_\nu ),$$
(26)
where $`\lambda _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}(E_\nu )`$ is the hep neutrino energy spectrum .

We recall that the slight “excess” of events in the high-energy tail of the SK normalized spectrum  is roughly consistent with the standard contribution $`(f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}1)`$ from hep neutrinos , and provides a 90% C.L. upper bound to such contribution,

$$f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}3,$$

as derived in  through an analysis with unconstrained $`f_B`$. As an example of relatively “large” hep flux we consider then the reference case $`(f_B,f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}})=(1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3})`$.

As for 8B neutrinos \[Eqs. (4)–(6)\], one can introduce for hep neutrinos three new response functions,

$$\rho _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X(E_\nu )=\mathrm{response}\mathrm{function}\mathrm{to}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{neutrinos}(X=e,a,c),$$
(27)
which are defined analogously to Eqs. (7)–(9), modulo the replacement of $`\lambda _B(E_\nu )`$ with $`\lambda _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}(E_\nu )`$. Correspondingly, one can define three new averaged probabilities,

$$P_{ee}_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X=𝑑E_\nu \rho _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X(E_\nu )P_{ee}(E_\nu )(X=e,a,c).$$
(28)
Figure 4 shows the SK response functions $`\rho _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^e`$ and $`\rho _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^a`$ (graphically coincident with the solid curve) in three representative high-energy bins, together with the SNO response function $`\rho _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^c`$ (dotted curve) in the corresponding energy ranges given in Table I. The response functions are somewhat different from each other, the difference becoming rapidly larger in lower energy intervals (not shown). Therefore, we cannot derive a reasonably approximate equality of the kind $`P_{ee}_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^eP_{ee}_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^c`$ \[as it was instead the case for 8B neutrinos, Eq.(20)\] However, this potential problem practically disappears in the combination with 8B neutrinos.

In fact, let us consider the combined B+hep response functions $`\rho ^X`$ for a source flux as in Eq. (26). Such functions are given by

$`\rho ^X(E_\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{B}+\mathrm{ℎ𝑒𝑝})\mathrm{response}\mathrm{function}(X=e,a,c)`$ (29)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f_B\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^X\rho _B^X(E_\nu )+f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0\sigma _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X\rho _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X(E_\nu )}{f_B\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^X+f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0\sigma _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X}}`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _B^X(E_\nu )+\frac{f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0\sigma _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X}{f_B\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^X}\rho _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X(E_\nu )}{1+\frac{f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0\sigma _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X}{f_B\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^X}}},`$ (31)
where our evaluations of the cross sections $`\sigma _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X`$ (defined in a way analogous to $`\sigma _B^X`$) are given in the second, third, and fourth column of Table III for $`X=e,a,c`$, respectively. In the same table, we also report the ratios between the standard contributions of hep neutrinos ($`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0\sigma _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^X`$) to 8B neutrinos ($`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{B}^0\sigma _B^X`$) in each $`i`$-th energy range. Since such ratios are small, the combined response functions $`\rho ^X`$ \[Eq. (31)\] are always dominated by the $`\rho _B^X`$ component, even for a relatively large hep flux (e.g., $`f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}/f_B=3`$). Therefore, we expect that, although the SK and SNO response functions to hep neutrinos can be noticeably different (see Fig. 4), the combined response functions to (B+hep) neutrinos can still be taken as approximately equal in SK-SNO corresponding ranges. Such expectation is confirmed by Fig. 5, were the combined response functions are shown in the same representative energy ranges of Fig. 2, but for the reference case of relatively large hep flux $`(f_B,f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}})=(1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3})`$.\**\**\** One can appreciate the contribution of hep neutrinos in the upper tail of the response functions by comparing Fig. 5 ($`f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}=3`$) with Fig. 2 ($`f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}=0`$). The SK and SNO combined response functions (solid and dotted curves, respectively) are indeed approximately equal in any energy range, the integral difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ being a few percent (as reported in the last column of Table III), except for the last bin where it exceeds $`10\%`$. We remind that the situation would be better (smaller $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) for the phenomenologically preferred case  of $`f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}/f_B<3`$. Therefore, if we average the oscillation probability over the combined response functions in each $`i`$-th energy range,

$$P_{ee}^{X,i}=𝑑E_\nu \rho ^{X,i}(E_\nu )P_{ee}(E_\nu ),$$
(32)
we can still assume them as approximately equal to each other,

$$P_{ee}^iP_{ee}^{e,i}=P_{ee}^{a,i}P_{ee}^{c,i}(i=1,\mathrm{},13),$$
(33)
as it was the case for 8B neutrinos only \[Eq. (20)\]. Finally, we remark that the approximate equalization of the combined SK and SNO response functions in Fig. 5 is partly due also to the fact that the relative hep contribution in each energy range is approximately independent of the interaction process $`X(=e,a,c)`$,

$$ϵ_i\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0\sigma _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^e}{\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^e}=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0\sigma _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^a}{\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^a}\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0\sigma _{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^c}{\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^c},$$
(34)
the differences being a few $`\times 10^3`$ (compare the 5th, 6th, and 7th columns of Table III), except, once again, for the last range ($`i=13`$), where the above approximation is not as good.

Let us discuss the effect of a nonzero hep flux on the results of the previous section. We redefine the expected normalized rates $`r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$ and $`r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$ as in Eqs. (22,23), with denominators $`R_{\mathrm{SK}}^{0,i}`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^{0,i}`$ still given by the standard rate from 8B neutrinos only,\*†\*†\*†The “standard” rate to which one should normalize the measured rate may or may not include the SSM hep neutrino contribution (in addition to SSM 8B neutrinos), the choice being purely conventional. Our choice (hep neutrinos not included in the standard unoscillated rates $`R_{\mathrm{SK}}^{0,i}`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^{0,i}`$) leads to more compact expressions in the context of our approach. as defined in Eqs. (14) and (15). However, we now include the hep neutrino contribution in the numerators $`R_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$:

$`R_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$ $`=`$ $`f_B\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0[\sigma _B^{e,i}P_{ee}_B^{e,i}+\sigma _B^{a,i}(1P_{ee}_B^{a,i})]+(B\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}),`$ (35)
$`R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$ $`=`$ $`f_B\mathrm{\Phi }_B^0\sigma _B^{c,i}P_{ee}_B^{e,i}+(B\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}).`$ (36)
The above Eqs. (35,36) are exact, i.e., they do not imply any approximation. By applying to such equations the approximate equalities expressed by Eqs. (33) and (34) we obtain, after some algebra,

$`r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$ $`=`$ $`(f_B+ϵ_if_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}})\left[P_{ee}^i+{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _B^{a,i}}{\sigma _B^{e,i}}}(1P_{ee}^i)\right],`$ (37)
$`r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$ $`=`$ $`(f_B+ϵ_if_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}})P_{ee}^i,`$ (38)
from which we can eliminate the average probability $`P_{ee}^i`$ to get

$$r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i=r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i\left(1\frac{\sigma _B^{a,i}}{\sigma _B^{e,i}}\right)+(f_B+ϵ_if_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}})\frac{\sigma _B^{a,i}}{\sigma _B^{e,i}}.$$
(39)
The above equation holds with an accuracy comparable to that of Eq. (25), namely, $`O(1\%)`$ for typical solutions to the solar neutrino problem. The only difference with Eq. (25) is the replacement $`f_Bf_B+ϵ_if_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}`$, where $`ϵ_i`$ \[defined in Eq. (34)\] is tabulated in the fifth column of Table III. Therefore, all the considerations in Sec. IV, related to the existence of a linear relation between SK and SNO rates in appropriate energy ranges, hold also in the presence of a nonnegligible hep neutrino contribution, up to the mentioned replacement for $`f_B`$ (barring perhaps the last range $`i=13`$, where the approximations may not be particularly good).

In addition, suppose that both the $`r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$’s and the $`r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$’s are measured with high precision, and that $`f_B`$ is also precisely determined from the NC measurement in SNO : then the only unknown would be $`f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}`$, which could be hopefully determined by applying Eq. (39) to the highest energy ranges (say, $`i=11,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}12}`$, and possibly $`13`$) where $`ϵ_i`$ is largest. Of course, at the level of accuracy required to determine the absolute hep neutrino flux $`f_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{p}}^0`$ from the SK and SNO data, one needs a very careful estimate of all the uncertainties involved, including the intrinsic approximations of our approach.

## V Effect of Earth matter and of sterile neutrinos

In this section we briefly discuss some limitations or modifications of our results, which can arise when neutrino oscillations are affected by Earth matter effects , or by transitions to a sterile state $`\nu _s`$.

### A Earth matter effects

So far, we have implicitly assumed one and the same probability function $`P_{ee}(E_\nu )`$ for both SK and SNO. This assumption is no longer valid in the presence of sizable Earth matter effects (during nighttime), since the different SK and SNO latitudes imply different nadir angle ($`\eta `$) exposures for the two experiments . Although the SK data have already excluded a significant fraction of the parameter space where Earth matter effects are large , one cannot exclude that more precise SK (and SNO) data may still reveal some distortion in the nadir distribution (see, e.g.,  and references therein). In such case, the probability function $`P_{ee}`$ could be significantly different in SK and SNO, especially along the inner trajectories traversing the Earth core, where mantle+core interference effects can occur , and where the exposure functions in SK and SNO are significantly different.

It follows that, if sizable Earth matter effects would emerge in SK or SNO nighttime data, our approach could be strictly applied only to daytime events. Notice, however, that the SK and SNO exposure functions, although different in principle, turn out to be approximately similar in the nadir angle range $`0.4\eta 0.8`$ (see Fig. 3 in ). Therefore, modulo such approximation, one could still assume one and the same function $`P_{ee}(E_\nu )`$ in SK and SNO (and thus apply our results) for the fraction of nighttime data with $`\eta [0.4,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.8}]`$.

### B Sterile neutrino oscillations

Recent global fits to solar neutrino data, including the latest SK results , tend to disfavor pure $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ oscillations  as compared to $`\nu _e\nu _{\mu ,\tau }`$, although it is perhaps too early to claim rejection of the $`\nu _s`$ scenario . In any case, mixed (active+sterile) solar neutrino oscillations are certainly still allowed , and can also be made consistent with the atmospheric neutrino oscillation evidence . In the general case of active+sterile oscillations, Eqs. (22) and (23) are modified as follows:

$`r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$ $`=`$ $`f_B\left[P_{ee}^i+{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _B^{a,i}}{\sigma _B^{e,i}}}(1P_{ee}^iP_{es}^i)\right],`$ (40)
$`r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$ $`=`$ $`f_BP_{ee}^i,`$ (41)
where the unitarity relation $`1=P_{ee}+P_{e\mu }+P_{es}`$ has been used, $`P_{es}`$ being the $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ oscillation probability.\*‡\*‡\*‡Similar relations were discussed in  for the total SK and SNO rates.

Unfortunately, one cannot eliminate both $`P_{ee}^i`$ and $`P_{es}^i`$ from the above equations, so as to derive a model-independent relation between the SK and SNO rates analogous to Eq. (25). However, one can eliminate at least $`P_{ee}^i`$ to get the relation

$$\frac{r_{\mathrm{SK}}^ir_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i(1\sigma _B^{a,i}/\sigma _B^{e,i})}{\sigma _B^{a,i}/\sigma _B^{e,i}}=f_B\left(1P_{es}^i\right),$$
(42)
which might still provide a useful test of $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ transitions. In fact, the quantity $`f_B\left(1P_{es}^i\right)`$ is independent of energy range index $`i`$ only if $`P_{es}(E_\nu )=\mathrm{const}`$. Therefore, variations of the left-hand-side of Eq. (42) in different energy ranges would provide a signature of $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ transitions with energy-dependent probability.

Further links between $`r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i`$ and $`r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i`$ can only be obtained by making some assumptions about $`P_{es}`$. For instance, by assuming pure sterile oscillations ($`1=P_{ee}+P_{es}`$), one gets from Eqs (40) and (41) that:

$$\mathrm{pure}\nu _e\nu _s\mathrm{oscillations}r_{\mathrm{SK}}^i=r_{\mathrm{SNO}}^i,$$
(43)
i.e., the normalized rates in the SK and SNO corresponding ranges are expected to be equal (due to the absence of $`\nu _{\mu ,\tau }`$ NC contributions in SK). The above equation is interesting because, independently of the functional form of $`P_{ee}(E_\nu )`$, it provides a possible way to distinguish pure sterile oscillations \[Eq. (43)\] from pure active oscillations \[Eq. (25)\]. Figure 6 shows, for instance, the “predicted” SNO spectrum for pure $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ oscillations, as obtained from Eq. (43). A comparison with Fig. 3 (“predicted” SNO spectrum for active oscillations) shows how the normalized SNO rates are expected to be less suppressed for the sterile case, on the basis of the present SK data. Finally, notice that Eq. (43) does not allow to determine $`f_B`$, nor to discriminate pure sterile oscillations from no oscillations. Such loss of predictive power simply reflects the fact that, for increasing amplitude of the $`\nu _e\nu _s`$ channel, there is a decreasing NC contribution in SK, so that the SK and SNO event rates tend to be equally suppressed, their combination providing eventually little additional information.

## VI Conclusions

In this work, we have shown that the SK detector response to 8B solar neutrinos, in each bin of the electron energy spectrum above 8 MeV, can be accurately approximated by the SNO detector response in appropriate (different) electron energy ranges. In a sense, it is possible to “tune” the SNO energy “bandwidth” so as to “equalize” the SK response in various spectrum bins. As a consequence, we have derived a set of linear relations among the SK and SNO spectral rates, whose distinguishing feature is the independence on the functional form of the (active) neutrino oscillation probability. Such relations can be used to determine the absolute 8B neutrino flux from SK and SNO data, and to cross-check the joint (non)observation of spectral deviations in the two experiments. As an exercise, pending official SNO spectrum data, we have inverted such relations to “predict” the SNO energy spectrum, on the basis of the current SK data. We have also discussed the effects and implications of a nonnegligible hep neutrino flux, of relatively large Earth matter effects, and of sterile neutrino transitions. We conclude by stressing that, should our results be adopted by the SK and SNO collaboration to perform a joint SK-SNO spectral analysis, dedicated MonteCarlo simulations would be desirable to assess all the uncertainties and their correlations, as well as to quantify (through a more detailed description of the instrumental responses) the approximations associated with our approach.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by INFN (FA51 Project) and in part by the Italian MURST (“Astroparticle Physics” Project). We thank D. Montanino for useful discussions and suggestions.

.

FIG. 1. Correspondence between electron energy ranges in SK and SNO. For each SK energy bin on the $`y`$-axis, the associated energy range in SNO is given on the $`x`$-axis. Ranges are labelled by sequential numbers. See also Table I.

.

FIG. 2. SK and SNO response functions to 8B neutrinos in a representative set of energy ranges. The functions are nearly coincident (“equalized”) within a few percent.

.

FIG. 3. Upper panel: SK observed energy spectrum (1117 day exposure ), normalized to the BP 2000 expectations for 8B neutrinos . The width and height of each grey box represent the bin energy range and the $`\pm 1\sigma `$ statistical uncertainty, respectively. Lower panel: SNO “predicted” energy spectrum, as obtained by projecting each SK energy bin rate onto the SNO correlated energy range (and propagating the SK statistical errors). The “prediction” (made for $`f_B=1`$) is valid for active oscillations, independently of the functional form of the flavor transition probability. See the text for details.

.

FIG. 4. SK and SNO response functions to hep neutrinos for three representative (high) energy ranges.

.

FIG. 5. Combined SK and SNO response functions to 8B and hep neutrinos, assuming a hep neutrino flux three times larger than the BP 2000 expectations . The functions are approximately coincident (typically within a few percent). A comparison with Fig. 2 shows that the hep contribution modifies the upper tail of the curves for the highest energy ranges, but does not really spoil the approximate equality between the SK and SNO response functions.

.

FIG. 6. As in the lower panel in Fig. 3, but for the case of sterile neutrino oscillations.


text:
# Spin and Rotation in General Relativity

## 1 General remarks

Broadly speaking, the “role of spin and rotation in General Relativity” covers two topics; the behavior of spinning particles in GR — this “spin” being either classical or quantum mechanical, and the physics associated with (noninertial) rotations. The papers presented to this session cover both these aspects of the subject. To the non-specialist, the most familiar heading in this general area is the Lense-Thirring effect, a precessional effect which is predicted (though so far not observed) to take place close to a rotating body. The papers of Ciufolini and Teyssandier are both devoted to this effect. Also well-known is the (gravitomagnetic) clock effect; as its name implies, this is concerned with time nonintegrability, rather than with precession. Tartaglia and Maleki both address this topic; and we live, moreover, at a time when both the Lense-Thirring and gravitomagnetic clock effects have the enticing possibility of experimental confirmation in the near future.

Connections with gravitational waves (also soon to be detected?) are made, though in very different ways by Cooperstock, Slagter, and Suzuki and Maeda. The behavior of spinning particles in various types of gravitational fields is analyzed by Mohseni, Tucker and Wang, by Mukhopadhyay and by Singh and Papini, the latter two contributions being concerned specifically with Dirac particles, while White and Raine — alone in this session — consider a theory with torsion. Bini, Gemelli and Ruffini give a more general account of the description of spinning particles in GR. In a nonquantum context, Wu and Xu include rotational motions in their analysis of hydrodynamic equations in General Relativity. The second subject of this session, concerned with rotation effects, has spawned, in recent years, the interesting phenomenon of spin-rotation coupling. This effect is described in the following sections of this introduction, and provides the motivation for Ryder’s paper, which shows that it is consistent with special relativity.

## 2 Spin-rotation coupling

In classical mechanics, the inertial properties of matter can be illustrated through numerous phenomena involving frames of reference undergoing translational and rotational accelerations. In nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, the state of a particle is primarily characterized by its inertial mass. On the other hand, the irreducible unitary representations of the inhomogeneous Lorentz group are characterized by both mass and spin. Thus in relativistic quantum mechanics two independent types of inertia are expected : the inertia that is primarily due to mass-energy and the purely quantum inertia due to intrinsic spin. The phenomenon of spin-rotation coupling illustrates the inertia of intrinsic spin.

Let us first consider a real massless scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)`$ in Minkowski spacetime such that $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$. Imagine an observer rotating with frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ about the $`z`$-axis in the $`(x,y)`$-plane. The coordinate transformation to the rest frame of the rotating observer is given by $`t^{}=t,z^{}=z`$, and

$`x^{}`$ $`=`$ $`x\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t+y\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }t,`$ (1)
$`y^{}`$ $`=`$ $`x\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }t+y\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t.`$ (2)
We note that this coordinate transformation in fact coincides with the geodesic frame set up along the worldline of the noninertial observer that remains at rest at the origin of spatial coordinates but refers observations to the spatial axes rotating with frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. In terms of the spherical polar coordinates $`(r,\theta ,\phi )`$, this transformation can be expressed as $`r^{}=r,\theta ^{}=\theta `$ and $`\phi ^{}=\phi \mathrm{\Omega }t`$. We suppose that the scalar field can be expressed in terms of a superposition of Fourier modes as

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(x)=\mathrm{Re}\underset{𝐤}{}\alpha (𝐤)e^{i(𝐤𝐫\omega t)},$$
(3)
where $`\omega =ck`$. Writing a plane wave in terms of spherical waves

$$e^{i𝐤𝐫}=4\pi \underset{lm}{}i^lj_l(kr)Y_{lm}^{}(\widehat{𝐤})Y_{lm}(\widehat{𝐫}),$$
(4)
we find that upon transformation to the rotating system of the observer, $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)=\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(x^{})`$ and that

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(x^{})=4\pi \mathrm{Re}\underset{𝐤lm}{}\alpha (𝐤)i^lj_l(kr)Y_{lm}^{}(\widehat{𝐤})Y_{lm}(\widehat{𝐫}^{})e^{i(\omega m\mathrm{\Omega })t}.$$
(5)
Here $`j_l,l=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$, are spherical Bessel functions and we have used the fact that for spherical harmonics

$$Y_{lm}(\theta ,\phi )=e^{im\mathrm{\Omega }t}Y_{lm}(\theta ^{},\phi ^{}).$$
(6)
Thus the frequencies of the modes as measured by the rotating observer are given by $`\omega ^{}=\gamma (\omega m\mathrm{\Omega })`$, where $`m=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$, and the Lorentz factor $`\gamma `$ accounts for time dilation since $`dt=\gamma d\tau `$. Comparing this result with the Doppler effect $`\omega _D^{}=\gamma (\omega 𝐯𝐤)`$, we find from $`𝐯=𝛀\times 𝐫`$ that $`\omega _D^{}=\gamma (\omega 𝐥𝛀)`$, where $`𝐥=𝐫\times 𝐤`$ and $`\mathrm{}𝐥=𝐋`$ is the (orbital) angular momentum. That is, our result for $`\omega ^{}`$ goes over to $`\omega _D^{}`$ in the JWKB limit.

Let us next consider an electromagnetic field in the inertial frame characterized by the vector potential in a gauge such that $`A_\mu =(0,𝐀)`$ with

$$𝐀(x)=\mathrm{Re}\underset{𝐤}{}𝐚(𝐤)e^{i(𝐤𝐫\omega t)},$$
(7)
where $`\omega =ck`$ as before and $`𝐤𝐚(𝐤)=0`$ by transversality. The transformation of the vector potential to the rotating frame implies that $`A^^0(x^{})=0`$ and $`𝐀^{}(x^{})=𝐀(x)`$. Writing $`𝐀(x)`$ in terms of vector spherical harmonics, we find

$$𝐀(x)=4\pi \mathrm{Re}\underset{𝐤JlM}{}i^l\left[𝐘_{JlM}^{}(\widehat{𝐤})𝐚(𝐤)\right]j_l(kr)𝐘_{JlM}(\widehat{𝐫})e^{i\omega t},$$
(8)
where $`J`$ and $`M`$ are the total angular momentum parameters of the field with $`J=1,2,3,\mathrm{}`$, and $`M=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}.`$ It follows that in the rotating system we have

$$𝐀^{}(x^{})=4\pi \mathrm{Re}\underset{𝐤JlM}{}i^l\left[𝐘_{JlM}^{}(\widehat{𝐤})𝐚(𝐤)\right]j_l(kr)𝐘_{JlM}(\widehat{𝐫}^{})e^{i(\omega M\mathrm{\Omega })t},$$
(9)
so that as before the new frequencies are $`\omega ^{}=\gamma (\omega M\mathrm{\Omega })`$ with $`M=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$, for each mode with frequency $`\omega `$ in the inertial frame.

To distinguish the role of the intrinsic spin of the photon from that of the orbital part in the formula for $`\omega ^{}`$, let us consider the case of normal incidence, where the orbital contribution vanishes. To this end, we consider a circularly-polarized plane monochromatic electromagnetic wave propagating along the $`z`$-axis given by

$$𝐀=\mathrm{Re}\left[a_0(\widehat{𝐱}\pm i\widehat{𝐲})e^{ik(zct)}\right].$$
(10)
Here the upper sign represents positive helicity (RCP) radiation, while the lower sign represents negative helicity (LCP) radiation. Since $`𝐀^{}(x^{})=𝐀(x)`$, we have

$`A_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`A_1\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t+A_2\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }t,`$ (11)
$`A_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`A_1\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }t+A_2\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t,`$ (12)
$`A_3^{}`$ $`=`$ $`A_3,`$ (13)
so that according to the rotating observer the coordinate components of the vector potential are given by

$$𝐀^{}=\mathrm{Re}\left[a_0(\widehat{𝐱}^{}\pm i\widehat{𝐲}^{})e^{ikz^{}i(\omega \mathrm{\Omega })t^{}}\right].$$
(14)
To determine the physically measurable field in the rotating frame, we must project the components of the field $`F_{\mu \nu }^{}=A_{\nu ,\mu }^{}A_{\mu ,\nu }^{}`$ on the orthonormal tetrad frame of the observer. Let us consider a rotating observer following the path

$$x=\rho \mathrm{cos}(\phi _0+\mathrm{\Omega }t),y=\rho \mathrm{sin}(\phi _0+\mathrm{\Omega }t),z=z_0.$$
(15)
The tetrad frame of the rotating observer with respect to the inertial frame is given in $`(ct,x,y,z)`$ coordinates by

$`\lambda _{(0)}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\gamma (1,\beta \mathrm{sin}\phi ,\beta \mathrm{cos}\phi ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}),`$ (16)
$`\lambda _{(1)}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(0,\mathrm{cos}\phi ,\mathrm{sin}\phi ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}),`$ (17)
$`\lambda _{(2)}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\gamma (\beta ,\mathrm{sin}\phi ,\mathrm{cos}\phi ,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}),`$ (18)
$`\lambda _{(3)}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}),`$ (19)
where $`\beta =\rho \mathrm{\Omega }/c,\gamma =(1\beta ^2)^{1/2}`$ and $`\phi =\phi _0+\mathrm{\Omega }t`$.

In the rotating frame, the observer has fixed spatial coordinates

$$x^{}=\rho \mathrm{cos}\phi _0,y^{}=\rho \mathrm{sin}\phi _0,z^{}=z_0,$$
(20)
and the corresponding tetrad frame in $`(ct^{},x^{},y^{},z^{})`$ coordinates is independent of time

$`\lambda _{(0)}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\gamma (1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}),`$ (21)
$`\lambda _{(1)}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(0,{\displaystyle \frac{x^{}}{\rho }},{\displaystyle \frac{y^{}}{\rho }},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}),`$ (22)
$`\lambda _{(2)}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(\gamma \beta ,{\displaystyle \frac{y^{}}{\rho \gamma }},{\displaystyle \frac{x^{}}{\rho \gamma }},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0})`$ (23)
$`\lambda _{(3)}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}),`$ (24)
where $`\rho =(x^2+y^2)^{1/2}`$. Let us note that the metric in the rotating frame is given by $`ds^2=g_{\mu \nu }^{}dx^\mu dx^\nu `$, where $`(c=1)`$

$$(g_{\mu \nu }^{})=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}1+\mathrm{\Omega }^2(x^2+y^2)& \mathrm{\Omega }y^{}& \mathrm{\Omega }x^{}& 0\\ \mathrm{\Omega }y^{}& 1& 0& 0\\ \mathrm{\Omega }x^{}& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right].$$
(25)
The rotating coordinates are admissible within the light cylinder at $`r=1/\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

It is straightforward to work out the projection of the field, derived from (8), on the tetrad frame of the observer (15); alternatively, this calculation could be done in the inertial frame resulting in $`F_{(\alpha )(\beta )}=F_{\mu \nu }\lambda _{(\alpha )}^\mu \lambda _{(\beta )}^\nu `$. Either way, the Fourier analysis of the measured field in the uniformly rotating frame, $`F_{(\alpha )(\beta )}`$, implies that the measured frequency spectrum of the radiation is given by $`\omega ^{}=\gamma (\omega M\mathrm{\Omega })`$, where $`M=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}.`$ In particular, for the special case of radiation propagating along the axis of rotation (11), we find $`\omega ^{}=\gamma (\omega \mathrm{\Omega })`$. This has a simple physical interpretation: the electric and magnetic fields rotate in the positive (negative) sense with frequency $`\omega `$ along the direction of propagation of an RCP (LCP) wave; therefore, the rotating observer will perceive the radiation frequency to be $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })`$ with respect to coordinate time in accordance with equation (11). This result should be compared and contrasted with the transverse Doppler effect $`\omega _D^{}=\gamma \omega `$ : in the JWKB limit $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\omega =\lambda /(2\pi c/\mathrm{\Omega })0`$, the influence of the intrinsic spin can be neglected, and we recover the transverse Doppler formula of the standard theory of relativity .

The Dirac equation for a spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ particle will be treated in Section 4, but the general result is basically the same, namely, $`\omega ^{}=\gamma (\omega M\mathrm{\Omega })`$, where $`M1/2=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}.`$

Let us now consider the physical consequences of the spin-rotation coupling. We note that our general result is inconsistent with phase invariance that leads to the Doppler and aberration effects. That is, only in the JWKB limit is the phase invariance of the wave recovered. As a consequence of this deviation from phase invariance, it is possible for an observer to rotate in such a way that $`\omega ^{}=0`$, i.e. for $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\omega /M`$ the wave stands completely still. By a mere rotation, an observer can stay at rest with respect to a fundamental radiation field. This is a basic consequence of the hypothesis of locality that underlies the theoretical determination of what accelerated observers measure in the standard interpretation of the theory of relativity. Let us recall that $`\omega ^{}=0`$ is excluded in the Doppler effect since $`v<c`$; however, the Doppler effect is in general valid only in the JWKB limit. A nonlocal theory of accelerated observers has been developed with the intention of preventing accelerated observers from comoving with basic radiation fields .

What about the possibility that $`\omega ^{}`$ can be negative? The issue that we need to discuss here is whether the rotating observer could interpret such modes as positive frequency radiation propagating in the opposite direction. To see what such an interpretation would signify, let us imagine a quantum system that undergoes a transition from a stationary state characterized by $`(E_1,J_1,\mathrm{}M_1)`$ according to standard inertial observers to a lower energy state $`(E_2,J_2,\mathrm{}M_2)`$ by emitting a photon of energy $`E_1E_2=\mathrm{}\omega `$. The photon is detected by the rotating observer and is found to have energy $`\mathrm{}\omega ^{}=\gamma (\mathrm{}\omega \mathrm{}M\mathrm{\Omega })`$. That is, from the viewpoint of the rotating observer the states have energies $`E_i^{}=\gamma (E_i\mathrm{}M_i\mathrm{\Omega }),i=1,2,`$ and $`E_1^{}E_2^{}=\mathrm{}\omega ^{}`$ with $`M_1M_2=M`$. If $`\omega ^{}<0`$, the rotating observer could claim that the photon was emitted by its detector and was absorbed by the state with energy $`E_1^{}`$ causing a transition to the state of higher energy $`E_2^{}`$. The only difficulty with this approach is that the causal sequence of events from the emission of the photon to its absorption is reversed whenever $`\omega ^{}<0`$. To preserve the causal sequence of events according to all observers, one would have to admit the possibility of negative energy states according to accelerated observers. No basic difficulty is encountered in this way, since the relativity of motion does not extend to accelerated systems. In relativity theory acceleration can be characterized in an absolute, i.e. coordinate-invariant and observer-independent, manner. For instance, if $`a^\mu =Du^\mu /d\tau `$ is the acceleration of an observer, then $`a^\mu a_\mu =g^2`$, where $`g>0`$ is the magnitude of the acceleration. Once $`g=0`$, then $`a^\mu =0`$ and the observer is not accelerated; otherwise, the observer has translational acceleration $`g(\tau )`$.

For a rotating observer, the rotational coupling of the total angular momentum naturally splits into the orbital and the intrinsic spin parts. In the case of electromagnetic radiation, the orbital coupling has been known in its limiting Doppler (i.e. JWKB) form for almost a century and is commonly referred to as the “Sagnac effect” . On the other hand, the observational consequences of the intrinsic spin-rotation coupling have been explored for the past several decades .

## 3 Observational aspects of the spin-rotation coupling

In most experimental circumstances the rotation frequency of the reference frame $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is much smaller than the (de Broglie) frequency of the particle involved; therefore, $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\omega 1`$ in the general formula $`\omega ^{}=\gamma (\omega M\mathrm{\Omega })`$ discussed before. Hence it is useful to consider the JWKB approximation for the purpose of discussing experiments. To this end, we can write the energy measured in the rotating frame as

$$E_𝐯^{}=\gamma (E𝐋𝛀)\gamma 𝐒𝛀.$$
(26)
It is possible to write a corresponding formula for the momentum of the wave as measured in the rotating frame

$$𝐏_𝐯^{}=𝐏+(\gamma 1)(𝐏\widehat{𝜷})\widehat{𝜷}\frac{1}{c}\gamma E𝜷+\frac{1}{c}\gamma (𝐒𝛀)𝜷.$$
(27)
To see where the spin-rotation coupling term in (18) comes from, imagine the noninertial observer at rest at the origin of the rotating coordinate system; in this case, $`E_0^{}=E𝐒𝛀`$ and $`𝐏_0^{}=𝐏`$. In the eikonal approximation, any other observer at rest in the rotating frame is expected to be different from the one on the rotation axis by only a boost with $`𝐯=c𝜷=𝛀\times 𝐫`$. In most observational situations $`\beta 1`$, so that the nonrelativistic approximation is adequate for the motion of the observer. Moreover, throughout this section we assume that $`𝛀`$ is constant in time.

The pointwise determination of the energy and momentum of the particle in (17) and (18) illustrates the assumption of locality in the theory of relativity . To describe physics in a rotating frame of reference, however, we need to incorporate these local “pointlike” frames of reference into a consistent extended reference frame that would be appropriate for the description of experiments. To this end, we choose the geodesic reference frame given in equation (1) that is established along the worldline of the noninertial observer at rest on the axis of rotation and note that in this reference frame $`𝐏^{}=𝐏`$ in the sense of equations (10) and $`E^{}=E𝐋𝛀𝐒𝛀`$. The energy and momentum of the particle in the rotating frame determine — in our approximation scheme — the phase $`\varphi `$ of the wave function representing the state of the particle in the rotating frame, i.e.

$$\mathrm{}d\varphi =E^{}dt^{}+𝐏^{}d𝐱^{}.$$
(28)
The variation of the phase can be measured via interferometry, which involves the detection of the interference of two or more coherent waves. Let $`\varphi _D=\varphi (t_D^{},𝐱_D^{})`$ be the phase of the wave at the detector in an interferometer, then

$$\varphi _D=\varphi _S+_S^D(E^{}dt^{}+𝐏^{}d𝐱^{}),$$
(29)
where $`\varphi _S=\varphi (t_S^{},𝐱_S^{})`$ is the phase of the wave at the source. Imagine a beam of radiation that is coherently split at the source into two beams that are then brought back together to interfere such that a phase shift $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ is detected, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =\varphi _D^+\varphi _D^{}`$ is the phase difference between the two beams at the detector. Here $`\varphi ^+(\varphi ^{})`$ refers to the phase along the counterclockwise (clockwise) beam.

The coupling of the orbital angular momentum of the particle with the rotation of the reference frame is revealed via the Sagnac effect,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{\mathrm{Sagnac}}=\frac{2\omega }{c^2}𝛀𝑑𝓐,$$
(30)
where $`𝓐`$ refers to the area of the interferometer. The measurement of this effect has led to many advances in basic and applied physics . In (21), $`\omega `$ is the frequency of electromagnetic waves or the de Broglie frequency of matter waves, i.e. $`\omega =mc^2/\mathrm{}`$ to lowest order. To illustrate this point, it is interesting to derive (21) using a simple analogy with the Aharonov-Bohm effect . The physical basis for this analogy is the Larmor theorem, which for particles with the same charge-to-mass ratio $`q/m`$ establishes a local connection between phenomena in an inertial frame but in the presence of a magnetic field $`𝐁`$ and those in a frame rotating at the Larmor frequency $`𝛀=q𝐁/(2mc)`$. For instance, the canonical momentum of a particle of mass $`m`$ in a constant magnetic field $`𝐁`$ is $`𝐏=m𝐯+q𝐀/c`$, where $`2𝐀=𝐁\times 𝐫`$; similarly, the canonical momentum of a particle in a uniformly rotating frame is $`𝐏=m𝐯^{}+m𝛀\times 𝐫`$. Therefore, the Sagnac phase shift can be obtained from the Aharonov-Bohm phase shift $`q𝐀𝑑𝐫/(\mathrm{}c)`$ by replacing $`q𝐁/(2c)`$ with $`m𝛀`$, i.e. $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =m(𝛀\times 𝐫)𝑑𝐫=2m𝛀𝓐`$.

The Sagnac effect for matter waves was first directly measured by Werner et al.  via neutron interferometry. Subsequently, it has been measured for electrons  and atoms . It is interesting to consider the theoretical extension of this effect to the gravitomagnetic field of rotating sources using the gravitational Larmor theorem .

Gravitoelectromagnetism (“GEM”) usually refers to the various useful ways in which Einstein’s general relativity can be described in terms of an analogy with Maxwell’s electrodynamics. For our purposes, this approach is particularly helpful in the linear approximation of general relativity that is applicable in the exterior of slowly moving astronomical bodies. The classical tests of general relativity deal with certain post-Newtonian corrections to the “Newtonian” gravitoelectric field that involves the mass-energy density. The gravitomagnetic field involves the mass-energy current instead.

The motion of particles in the gravitational field of a rotating mass was first studied by de Sitter  and later in a more general form by Thirring and Lense ; however, GEM has a long history that dates back to the last decades of the nineteenth century . Ciufolini  has described direct evidence for the Lense-Thirring effect involving two $`LAGEOS`$ satellites in orbit about the Earth. A direct measurement of the gravitomagnetic field of the Earth is expected in the next few years from the GP-B, which involves superconducting gyroscopes in a polar orbit about the Earth . The gravitomagnetic precession frequency of an ideal gyroscope at rest outside a rotating mass is given by

$$𝛀_P=\frac{GJ}{c^2r^3}\left[3(\widehat{𝐉}\widehat{𝐫})\widehat{𝐫}\widehat{𝐉}\right],$$
(31)
where $`J`$ is the angular momentum of the body and $`𝐫`$ is the position vector of the pointlike ideal gyroscope. Let us note that the same precession is locally obtained in Minkowski spacetime but in a frame rotating with a Larmor frequency of $`𝛀_P`$. This example illustrates the gravitational Larmor theorem.

In close formal analogy with the classical Larmor theorem, a gravitomagnetic field can be locally replaced by a frame of reference in Minkowski spacetime rotating with frequency $`𝛀=𝛀_P`$. It therefore follows from (21) with $`𝛀𝛀_P`$ that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{GM}=\frac{2G\omega }{c^4}\frac{(𝐉\times 𝐫)d𝐫}{r^3},$$
(32)
where we have used the fact that $`c^2𝛀_P=\times (G𝐉\times 𝐫/r^3)`$. To examine the observational possibilities for the gravitomagnetic effect (23), it is useful to begin by mentioning the corresponding gravitoelectric effects. The first gravitationally-induced quantum interference effect was observed in a neutron interferometer by Colella, Overhauser and Werner (“COW”) in 1975. The COW effect is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{\mathrm{COW}}=\frac{g𝒜\omega }{c^2v}\mathrm{sin}\alpha ,$$
(33)
where $`g`$ is the acceleration of gravity, $`𝒜`$ is the area of the interferometer, $`\alpha `$ is the angle between the plane of the interferometer and the horizontal plane, $`\omega `$ is the de Broglie frequency of the neutron and $`v`$ is its speed . A similar formula can be derived for light using classical general relativity, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{ph}=2g𝒜\omega \mathrm{sin}\alpha /c^3`$; in fact, an experiment using fiber optics has been proposed to measure this effect . Similarly, for the case of electromagnetic radiation a space experiment  has been proposed to measure the gravitomagnetic phase shift (23). On the other hand, for matter waves the gravitomagnetic contribution — due to the rotation of the Earth — to the interference phase shift (23) is smaller than the gravitoelectric phase shift (24) by $`(v/c)(v_E/c)`$, where $`v_E`$ is the equatorial speed of the rotating Earth. It would be rather difficult in practice to separate the gravitomagnetic effect from the dominant Sagnac effect (21) on the rotating Earth. Nevertheless, it may be possible to measure the quantum gravitomagnetic effect (23) for atoms using atomic interferometry .

Let us now turn our attention to the possibility of measuring the effects of intrinsic spin. To this end, let us rewrite the Sagnac phase shift (21) in the form

$$\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{\mathrm{Sagnac}}=\underset{a}{}(𝛀𝐋_a)\mathrm{\Delta }t_a,$$
(34)
where the index $`a`$ ranges over the various segments of the interferometer and $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_a`$ is a directional quantity defined by $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐫_a=𝐯_a\mathrm{\Delta }t_a`$. Since $`_a\mathrm{\Delta }𝐫_a=0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_a`$ is positive (negative) along the counterclockwise (clockwise) beam. Replacing $`𝐋`$ with the total angular momentum $`𝐋+𝐒`$ will in general result in an additional phase shift in the rotating frame due to the spin-rotation coupling given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{SR}=\frac{1}{\mathrm{}}\underset{a}{}(𝛀𝐒_a)\mathrm{\Delta }t_a.$$
(35)
By using devices that would reverse the direction of spin on a segment of the interferometer, one could in principle measure the spin-rotation phase shift (26). For instance, if the two segments from the source to the detector are semicircular arcs of radius $`r`$, then for a particle of spin $`𝐒=\mathrm{}𝝈`$ and speed $`v`$ we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{SR}=2\pi r\sigma \mathrm{\Omega }/v`$, assuming that on the counterclockwise (clockwise) arc the spin is oriented parallel (antiparallel) to the axis of rotation of the interferometer. Of course, the spin direction must be reversed again in one arc just before the beams recombine in order that interference can take place. It follows that the spin-rotation phase shift is proportional to the circumference of the interferometer in contrast to the Sagnac phase shift that is proportional to the area of the interferometer. For the sake of comparison, we note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{SR}/\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{\mathrm{Sagnac}}=\sigma \lambda /(2\pi r)`$, so that the spin-rotation effect is generally smaller than the Sagnac effect by the ratio of the (de Broglie) wavelength of the particle to the circumference of the interferometer .

Let us mention that in the gravitational field of a rotating mass, such as in a laboratory on the Earth, we expect a gravitomagnetic component of the spin-rotation coupling as well, since the gravitational Larmor theorem implies that the effective rotation frequency is $`𝛀𝛀_P`$, where $`𝛀`$ is the frequency of rotation of the Earth. Therefore, the net result is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{SR}=\mathrm{}^1\underset{a}{}(𝛀𝛀_P)𝐒_a\mathrm{\Delta }t_a.$$
(36)
It is hoped that this effect could become measurable via optical or matter wave interferometry in the future.

An interesting consequence of the spin-rotation coupling is a certain frequency-shift phenomenon. Imagine a device and an incident particle such that in passing through the device the particle’s spin direction is reversed. Consider such a device rotating with frequency $`𝛀`$ in an inertial frame. Let $`E_i`$ be the initial energy of the incident particle and $`E_f`$ the final energy of the particle after passing through the rotating device. For a particle propagating parallel to the rotation axis of the device, the energy as measured by an observer at rest with the device is $`E^{}=E_i𝐒𝛀`$ as well as $`E^{}=E_f+𝐒𝛀`$, so that $`E_fE_i=2𝐒𝛀`$. For electromagnetic waves, the corresponding frequency shift was apparently first discovered in the microwave regime . Subsequently, the frequency shift has been studied in the optical regime by a number of authors . The general phenomenon of spin-rotation coupling for photons has been the subject of recent investigations . The spin-rotation energy shift would give rise to an observable beat phenomenon in a proposed interferometry experiment .

The consequences of spin-rotation coupling for atomic physics have been studied by Silverman . Cai and Papini  have discussed the astrophysical implications of this coupling for massive neutrinos. Moreover, certain depolarization phenomena in circular accelerators  have been interpreted by Papini et al.  in terms of the spin-rotation coupling.

For most laboratory applications, the spin-rotation interaction Hamiltonian involving intrinsic spin would be of the form $`H_{int}=𝐒𝛀+𝐒𝛀_P`$, where $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }10^{19}`$eV and $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_P10^{29}`$ eV for a laboratory on the Earth. Let us consider, for example, an experiment that involves the difference in the energy $`E`$ of a particle of spin $`S=\mathrm{}\sigma `$ polarized vertically up $`(E_+)`$ and down $`(E_{})`$ near the surface of an astronomical body. Then, the interaction under consideration implies that

$$E_+E_{}=2\sigma (\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_0)\mathrm{sin}\theta ,$$
(37)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=\mathrm{\Omega }2GJ/(c^2R^3),R`$ is the radius of the body and $`\theta `$ is the geographic latitude. The $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ in (28) thus consists of two parts: the rotation frequency of the body and a smaller gravitomagnetic component. There is observational support for the first term from high-precision experiments involving the coupling of the nuclear spin of Mercury to the rotation of the Earth . In connection with the second term, let us note that for Jupiter $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }_0)10^{27}`$ eV, while for a neutron star $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }_0)10^{14}`$ eV. It is likely that with further improvements in magnetometer design, the spin-gravitomagnetic coupling could become measurable near the surface of Jupiter in the foreseeable future . It is important to recognize that such a relativistic quantum gravitational effect, like all other gravitational effects, is subject to the whole mass-energy content of the universe. Our treatment here has therefore been based on certain cosmological assumptions regarding the distribution of angular momentum in the universe; specifically, we have assumed that on the largest scales there is no preferred sense of rotation. On the other hand, the observation of the gravitomagnetic effects under consideration here would imply certain interesting restrictions on the distribution of mass-current in the universe.

## 4 Spin-rotation coupling, the Dirac equation and the Equivalence Principle

Turning now to the case of spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles, the relativistically correct way to treat this is to write the Dirac equation in a rotating frame of reference. Although the prescription for doing this is not perhaps widely known, it is perfectly well defined and is described in various places in the literature \[32-35\]. The general form of the Dirac equation (in a coordinate basis) is

$$i\mathrm{}\gamma ^\lambda \{_\lambda +\frac{1}{8}[\gamma ^\mu ,\gamma ^\nu ]g_{\mu \rho }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu \lambda }^\rho \}\mathrm{\Psi }=m\mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(38)
Hehl and Ni  have calculated the resulting equation in an arbitrary noninertial frame — one subject both to rotation and to acceleration. Expressing the equation in the form $`i\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Psi }/t=H\mathrm{\Psi }`$ they have found an expression for the Hamiltonian $`H`$ in the nonrelativistic limit, by taking appropriate Foldy-Wouthuysen transformations. In the special case of zero acceleration (in which, therefore, the connection coefficients $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu \lambda }^\rho `$ are calculated essentially from the metric tensor (16) above) their Hamiltonian reduces to

$$H=\beta m+\beta \frac{p^2}{2m}\omega .(𝐋+𝐒).$$
(39)
The first two terms, of course, represent rest mass and kinetic energy. The next term, $`\omega .𝐋,`$ represents a coupling of rotations with orbital angular momentum and appears in the work of Page  and Werner et al. . The final term, $`\omega .𝐒`$, is the spin-rotation coupling whose existence was first mooted by Mashhoon ; see also . An experiment to test for the existence of this term has recently been proposed by Mashhoon et al. .

Since the anticipated spin-rotation coupling term was found, as noted above, in a non-relativistic approximation, the question arises whether a similar term appears in the general case. This question is nontrivial since the identification of the Pauli matrices ($`1`$, to give $`4\times 4`$ matrices) with the spin operators for spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ particles only holds in the nonrelativistic limit. A relativistic spin operator can, however, be defined, and is in fact  closely related to the Foldy-Wouthuysen “mean spin” operator. It then follows easily  that the coupling of spin with rotations holds also at the relativistic level. (It should be noted, however, that this only holds in $`\mathrm{𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑜𝑤𝑠𝑘𝑖}\mathrm{𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒}`$. Spin is defined, following Wigner , as the “little group” of the inhomogeneous Lorentz group; that is, the group which leaves a given 4-momentum invariant. The inhomogeneous Lorentz group, however, is the isometry group of Minkowski space; in a general Riemannian space there is no isometry group, so spin is undefined.)

A further question which presents itself is concerned with the *Equivalence Principle*. In Einstein’s traditional argument, (noninertial) accelerations are equivalent to a gravitational field, so we might expect, assuming that the Equivalence Principle holds down to the quantum level, the same physical effects to emerge from the behavior of Dirac particles in an accelerating reference frame and in a Schwarzschild spacetime — that is, after due attention has been paid to the fact that the Equivalence Principle (EP) is a $`\mathrm{𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑙}`$ one, in which tidal forces are neglected. If we now envisage a generalization of the EP to include (noninertial) $`\mathrm{𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠}`$, we should then expect similar physical effects from a Dirac particle in a general noninertial frame with one in a Kerr spacetime. Some investigations have recently been made into this interesting area \[42-44\].