Paper detail

How well do we understand Beryllium-7 + proton -> Boron-8 + photon? An Effective Field Theory perspective

We have studied the 7Be(p,photon)8B reaction in the Halo effective field theory (EFT) framework. The leading order (LO) results were published in Phys.Rev.C89,051602(2014) after the isospin mirror process, 7Li(n,photon)8Li, was addressed in Phys.Rev.C89,024613(2014). In both calculations, one key step was using the final shallow bound state asymptotic normalization coefficients (ANCs) computed by ab initio methods to fix the EFT couplings. Recently we have developed the next-to-LO (NLO) formalism (to appear soon), which could reproduce other model results by no worse than 1% when the 7Be-p energy was between 0 and 0.5 MeV. In our recent report (arXiv:1507.07239), a different approach from that in Phys.Rev.C89,051602(2014) was used. We applied Bayesian analysis to constrain all the NLO-EFT parameters based on measured S-factors, and found tight constraints on the S-factor at solar energies. Our S(E=0 MeV)= 21.3 + - 0.7 eV b. The uncertainty is half of that previously recommended. In this proceeding, we provide extra details of the Bayesian analysis, including the computed EFT parameters' probability distribution functions (PDFs) and how the choice of input data impacts final results.