We summarize and critically evaluate the available data on nuclear fusion cross sections important to energy generation in the Sun and other hydrogen-burning stars and to solar neutrino production. Recommended values and uncertainties are provided for key cross sections, and a recommended spectrum is given for 8 B solar neutrinos. We also discuss opportunities for further increasing the precision of key rates, including new facilities, new experimental techniques, and improvements in theory. This review, which summarizes the conclusions of a workshop held at the Institute for Nuclear Theory, Seattle, in January 2009, is intended as a 10-year update and supplement to Reviews of Modern Physics 70 (1998) 1265.

We review and analyze the available information on the nuclear-fusion cross sections that are most important for solar energy generation and solar neutrino production. We provide best values for the low-energy cross-section factors and, wherever possible, estimates of the uncertainties. We also describe the most important experiments and calculations that are required in order to improve our knowledge of solar fusion rates. [S0034-6861(98)00704-1]

Spurred by the recent complete determination of the weak currents in two-nucleon systems up to O(Q 3 ) in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, we carry out a parameter-free calculation of the threshold S-factors for the solar pp (proton-fusion) and hep processes in an effective field theory that combines the merits of the standard nuclear physics method and systematic chiral expansion. The power of the EFT adopted here is that one can correlate in a unified formalism the weak-current matrix elements of two-, three-and four-nucleon systems. Using the tritium β-decay rate as an input to fix the only unknown parameter in the theory, we can evaluate the threshold S factors with drastically improved precision; the results are Spp(0) = 3.94×(1 ± 0.004)×10 −25 MeV-b and S hep (0) = (8.6 ± 1.3)×10 −20 keV-b. The dependence of the calculated S-factors on the momentum cutoff parameter Λ has been examined for a physically reasonable range of Λ. This dependence is found to be extremely small for the pp process, and to be within acceptable levels for the hep process, substantiating the consistency of our calculational scheme.

In interpreting the SNO experiments, accurate estimates of the νd reaction cross sections are of great importance. We improve the previous estimates of our group by updating some of its inputs and by taking into account the results of a recent effective-field-theoretical calculation. The new cross sections are slightly (∼1 %) larger than the previously reported values. It is shown to be reasonable to assign 1% uncertainty to the νd cross sections reported here; this error estimate does not include radiative corrections, for which we refer to the literature. : 25.30.Pt, 25.10.+s, 26.65.+t, 95.30.Cq PACS