The sensitivity of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) to measure the shape of the recoil electron spectrum in the charged-current reaction of ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ solar neutrinos interacting with deuterium can be improved if the results of a ${}^8\mathrm{Li}$ 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 ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ neutrino spectrum and the ${}^8\mathrm{Li}$ electron spectrum and conclude that the influence of these effects on the ratio of the two spectra as measured by the SNO is very small.

• Received 24 February 1998

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.58.1278