ar X iv : n uc l - th / 9 80 20 78 v 1 2 5 Fe b 19 98 8 Li electron spectrum versus 8 B neutrino spectrum : implications for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

The sensitivity of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) to measure the shape of the recoil electron spectrum in the charged-current reaction of 8 B solar neutrinos interacting with deuterium can be improved if the results of a 8 Li beta-decay calibration experiment are included in the test. We calculate an improvement in sensitivity, under certain idealistic assumptions, of about a factor of 2, sufficient to resolve different neutrino-oscillation solutions to the solar-neutrino problem. We further examine the role of recoil and radiative corrections on both the 8 B neutrino spectrum and the 8 Li electron spectrum and conclude that the influence of these effects on the ratio of the two spectra as measured by SNO is very small.