Determining the Flavour Content of the Low-Energy Solar Neutrino Flux

Abstract

We study the sensitivity of the HELLAZ and Borexino solar neutrino experiments on discriminating the neutrino species nu_e, anti-nu_e, nu_{mu,tau}, anti-nu_{mu,tau}, and nu_{sterile} using the difference in the recoil electron kinetic energy spectra in elastic neutrino-electron scattering. We find that one can observe a non-vanishing nu_{mu,tau} component in the solar neutrino flux, especially when the nu_e survival probability is low. Also, if the data turn out to be consistent with nu_e <-> nu_{mu,tau} oscillations, an anti-nu_e component can be excluded effectively.