On the Composition of the Solar Interior Rapporteur Paper I

Standard solar models, although they are free from the influence of much of the fluid motion that is bound to be present in the Sun, have been shown by helioseismology to represent the spherically averaged structure of the Sun amazingly well. This state of affairs has come about after painstaking refinements by a great many people of the pertinent microphysics, including that which controls the equation of state, the opacity, the nuclear reaction rates and the diffusion that inhibits gravitational segregation of chemical elements. It has instilled confidence in the modellers in being able to predict the composition of the solar interior. But there are consequences of the flow, related particularly to redistribution of chemical species, that can be difficult to identify observationally, yet which may degrade any inferences we might make. Their potential presence must at least be acknowledged by anyone who tries to asses the reliability of the models. This report summarizes the discussions in the preceding pages of this volume of the current theoretical and observational status of the subject, pointing to many of the caveats that have been raised, and attempting at the same time to put them into a seemingly coherent discourse in the context of our present understanding of the workings of the solar interior. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.