How Do Uncertainties in the Surface Chemical Composition of the Sun Affect the Predicted Solar Neutrino Fluxes?

We show that uncertainties in the values of the surface heavy elementabundances of the Sun are the largest source of the theoretical uncertainty incalculating the p-p, pep, 8B, 13N, 15O, and 17F solar neutrino fluxes. Weevaluate for the first time the sensitivity (partial derivative) of each solarneutrino flux with respect to the surface abundance of each element. We thencalculate the uncertainties in each neutrino flux using `conservative(preferred)' and `optimistic' estimates for the uncertainties in the elementabundances. The total conservative (optimistic) composition uncertainty in thepredicted 8B neutrino flux is 11.6% (5.0%) when sensitivities to individualelement abundances are used. The traditional method that lumps all abundancesinto a single quantity (total heavy element to hydrogen ratio, Z/X) yields alarger uncertainty, 20%. The uncertainties in the carbon, oxygen, neon,silicon, sulphur, and iron abundances all make significant contributions to theuncertainties in calculating solar neutrino fluxes; the uncertainties ofdifferent elements are most important for different neutrino fluxes. Theuncertainty in the iron abundance is the largest source of the estimatedcomposition uncertainties of the important 7Be and 8B solar neutrinos. Carbonis the largest contributor to the uncertainty in the calculation of the p-p,13N, and 15O neutrino fluxes. However, for all neutrino fluxes, severalelements contribute comparable amounts to the total composition uncertainty.