High energy solar neutrinos and p-wave contributions to ³He(p, ve⁺)⁴He

High energy solar neutrinos can come from the hep reaction, ³He (p, ve⁺)⁴He, with a large end point energy of 18.8 MeV. Understanding the hep reaction may be important for interpreting solar neutrino spectra. We calculate the contribution of the axial-charge transition ³P₀→¹S₀ to the hep thermonuclear S factor using a one-body reaction model involving a nucleon moving in optical potentials. Our result is comparable to or larger than previous calculations of the s-wave Gamow-Teller contribution. This indicates that the hep reaction may have p-wave strength leading to an enhancement of the S factor.