Helioseismological Implications of Recent Solar Abundance Determinations

We show that standard solar models are in good agreement with thehelioseismologically determined sound speed and density as a function of solarradius, the depth of the convective zone, and the surface helium abundance, aslong as those models do not incorporate the most recent heavy element abundancedeterminations. However, sophisticated new analyses of the solar atmosphereinfer lower abundances of the lighter metals (like C, N, O, Ne, and Ar) thanthe previously widely used surface abundances. We show that solar models thatinclude the lower heavy element abundances disagree with the solar profiles ofsound speed and density as well as the depth of the convective zone and thehelium abundance. The disagreements for models with the new abundances rangefrom factors of several to many times the quoted uncertainties in thehelioseismological measurements. The disagreements are at temperatures belowwhat is required for solar interior fusion reactions and therefore do notsignificantly affect solar neutrino emission. If errors in thecalculated OPALopacities are solely responsible for the disagreements, then the corrections inthe opacity must extend from 2 times 10^6 K (R = 0.7R_Sun)to 5 times 10^6 K (R= 0.4 R_Sun), with opacity increases of order 10%.Comment: ApJ in press; clarified Figure