Parameter-free effective field theory calculation for the solar proton-fusion and hep processes

Abstract

Spurred by the recent complete determination of the weak currents in two-nucleon systems up to $\mathcal{O}{(Q}^{3})$ in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, we carry out a parameter-free calculation of the threshold S factors for the solar $\mathrm{pp}$ (proton-fusion) and hep processes in an effective field theory (EFT) 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 $\ensuremath{\beta}$-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 ${S}_{\mathrm{pp}}(0)=3.94\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}(1\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.004)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}25}\mathrm{MeV}\mathrm{}\mathrm{b}$ and ${S}_{\mathrm{hep}}(0)=(8.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.3)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}20}\mathrm{keV}\mathrm{}\mathrm{b}.$ The dependence of the calculated S factors on the momentum cutoff parameter $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ has been examined for a physically reasonable range of $\ensuremath{\Lambda}.$ This dependence is found to be extremely small for the $\mathrm{pp}$ process, and to be within acceptable levels for the hep process, substantiating the consistency of our calculational scheme.