The estimation of the neutrino flux produced by pep reactions in the Sun

The result of the experiment performed to measure the solar neutrino flux at one AU produced by the p + p + e → d + ν e ?> reaction (pep) was announced for the first time in 2012 by the Borexino collaboration. This neutrino flux was significantly greater than the flux predicted by Bahcall and May, who used two-body approaches for the calculation of this reaction. We have used the three-body model for the proton-proton-electron system in the continuous spectrum of energy to determine the rate of the pep reaction, and have estimated the neutrino flux. Our result for the neutrino flux is 25–40% more than the value predicted by Bachall et al and depends on the shape of the nucleon–nucleon (N N) potential. Moreover, the calculated flux lies within the confidence interval of the experimental data in the case of purely attractive potentials as well as when the potential is repulsive at small distances between nucleons.