Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T16:55:00.783Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Solar Opacities Constrained by Solar Neutrinos and Solar Oscillations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Arthur N. Cox*
Affiliation:
Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This review discusses the current situation for opacities at the solar center, the solar surface, and for the few million kelvin temperatures that occur below the convection zone. The solar center conditions are important because they are crucial for the neutrino production, which continues to be predicted about 4 times that observed. The main extinction effects there are free-free photon absorption in the electric fields of the hydrogen, helium and the CNO atoms, free electron scattering of photons, and the bound-free and bound-bound absorption of photons by iron atoms with two electrons in the 1s bound level. An assumption that the iron is condensed-out below the convection zone, and the opacity in the central regions is thereby reduced, results in about a 25 percent reduction in the central opacity but only a 5 percent reduction at the base of the convection zone. Furthermore, the p-mode solar oscillations are changed with this assumption, and do not fit the observed ones as well as for standard models. A discussion of the large effective opacity reduction by weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs or Cosmions) also results in poor agreement with observed p-mode oscillation frequencies. The much larger opacities for the solar surface layers from the Los Alamos Astrophysical Opacity Library instead of the widely used Cox and Tabor values show small improvements in oscillation frequency predictions, but the largest effect is in the discussion of p-mode stability. Solar oscillation frequencies can serve as an opacity experiment for the temperatures and densities, respectively, of a few million kelvin and between 0.1 and 10 g/cm3. Current oscillation frequency calculations indicate that possibly the Opacity Library values need an increase of typically 15 percent just at the bottom of the convection zone at 3×106K. Opacities have uncertainties at the photosphere and deeper than the convection zone ranging from 10 to 25 percent. The equation of state that supplies data for the opacity calculations fortunately has pressure uncertainties of only about 1 percent, but opacity uncertainties will always be much larger. A discussion is given about opacity experiments that the stars provide. Opacities in the envelopes of the Hyades G stars, the Cepheids, δ Scuti variables, and the β Cephei variables indicate that significantly larger opacities, possibly caused by iron lines, seem to be required.

Type
Part 1: Solar Modelling
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1990

References

Aller, L.H. 1961. The Abundance of the Elements, (New York: Interscience Publishers).Google Scholar
Andreasen, G.K., 1988. Stellar consequences of enhanced metal opacity. I. An attractive solution of the Cepheid period ratio discrepancies. Astron. Astrophys., 201, 72.Google Scholar
Andreasen, G.K. and Petersen, J.O. 1988. Double mode pulsating stars and opacity changes. Astron. Astrophys., 192, L4.Google Scholar
Bahcall, J.N. and Ulrich, R.K. 1988. Solar models, neutrino experiments, and helioseismology. Rev. Mod. Phys., 60, 297.Google Scholar
Balmford, N.J. and Gough, D.O. 1988. Radiative and convective influences on stellar pulsational stability. Seismology of the Sun and Sun-Like Stars, ESA SP 286, ed. Rolfe, E. J., p. 47.Google Scholar
Bethe, H.A. 1986. Possible explanation of the solar neutrino puzzle. Phys. Rev. Lett., 56, 1305.Google Scholar
Boercker, D.B. 1987. Collective effects on Thomson Scattering in the solar interior. Ap. J. Lett., 316, L98.Google Scholar
Christensen-Dalsgaard, J., Duvall, T.L., Gough, D.O., Harvey, J.W., and Rhodes, E.J. 1985. Speed of sound in the solar interior. Nature, 315, 378.Google Scholar
Christensen-Dalsgaard, J. and Frandsen, S. 1983. Radiative transfer and solar oscillations. Solar Physics, 82, 165.Google Scholar
Cox, A.N. 1965. Stellar absorption coefficients and opacities. Stars and Stellar Systems, 8, eds. Aller, L. H. and McLaughlin, D. B. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) p. 195.Google Scholar
Cox, A.N. 1983. Stability problems with an application to early type stars. presented at Swiss Society of Astrophysics and Astronomy, Saas Fee, Switzerland, 1983, Mar 21-26.Google Scholar
Cox, A.N., Guzik, J.A. and Kidman, R.B. 1989. Oscillations of solar models with internal element diffusion. Ap. J., 342, 1187.Google Scholar
Cox, A.N., Guzik, J.A., and Raby, S. 1989. Oscillations of condensed-out iron and cosmion solar models. Ap. J., submitted.Google Scholar
Cox, A.N. and Stewart, J.N. 1970a. Rosseland opacity tables for population I compositions. Ap. J. Suppl., 19, 243.Google Scholar
Cox, A.N. and Stewart, J.N. 1970b. Rosseland opacity tables for population II compositions. Ap. J. Suppl., 19, 261.Google Scholar
Cox, A.N. and Tabor, J.E. 1976. Rosseland opacity tables for 40 stellar mixtures. Ap. J. Suppl., 31, 271.Google Scholar
Davis, R. 1986. Report to the Seventh Workshop on Grand Unification, (ICOR-BAN ‘86, Toyoma, Japan), p. 237.Google Scholar
Dearborn, D.S.P., Marx, G., and Ruff, I. 1987. A classical solution for the solar neutrino puzzle. Prog. Theo. Phys., 77, 12.Google Scholar
DeLuca, E. E., Griest, K., Rosner, R., and Wang, J. 1989. On the effects of cosmions upon the structure and evolution of very low mass stars. Ap. J. Lett., submitted.Google Scholar
Diesendorf, M.O. 1970. Electron correlations and solar neutrino counts. Nature, 227, 266.Google Scholar
Diesendorf, M.O. and Ninham, 1969. The effect of quantum correlations on electron-scattering opacities. Ap. J., 156, 1069.Google Scholar
Eggleton, P.P., Faulkner, J. and Flannery, B.P. 1973. An approximate equation of state for stellar material. Astron. Astrophys., 23, 325.Google Scholar
Gilliland, R.L. and Däppen, W. 1988. Oscillations in solar models with weakly interacting massive particles. Ap. J., 324, 1153.Google Scholar
Huebner, W.F. 1978. Proc. Informal Conf. on Status and Future of Solar Neutrino Research, BNL Rept. 50879, ed. Friedlander, G. vol 1, p. 107.Google Scholar
Huebner, W.F. 1986. Atomic and radiative processes in the solar interior. Physics of the Sun, (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company), 1, p. 33.Google Scholar
Huebner, W.F., Merts, A.L., Magee, N.H., and Argo, M.F. 1977. Astrophysical Opacity Library, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Report, LA-6760-M.Google Scholar
Iben, I. 1965. Stellar evolution I. The approach to the main sequence. Ap. J., 141, 993.Google Scholar
Iben, I. 1975. Thermal pulses; p-capture, α-capture s-process nucleosynthesis; and convective mixing in a star of intermediate mass. Ap. J., 196, 546.Google Scholar
Iglesias, C.A., Rogers, F.J., and Wilson, B.G. 1987. Reexamination of the metal contribution to astrophysical opacity. Ap. J. Lett., 322, L45.Google Scholar
Jiménez, A., Pallé, P. L., Pérez, J. C., Régulo, C., Roca Cortés, T., Isaak, G.R., McLeod, C.P., and van der Raay, B.B. 1988. The solar oscillations spectrum and the solar cycle. Advances in Helio- and Asteroseismology, IAU Colloquium 123, eds. Christensen-Dalsgaard, J. and Frandsen, S., p. 208.Google Scholar
Kidman, R.B. and Cox, A.N. 1984. The stability of the low degree five minute solar oscillations, in Solar Seismology from Space, eds. Ulrich, R. K., Harvey, J., Rhodes, E.J., and Toomre, J., (NASA Pub 8484), p. 335.Google Scholar
Korzennik, S.G. and Ulrich, R.K. 1989. Seismic analysis of the solar interior I. Can opacity changes improve the theoretical frequencies? Ap. J., 339, 1144.Google Scholar
Magee, N.H., Merts, A.L., and Huebner, W.F., 1984. Is the metal contribution to the astrophysical opacity incorrect? Ap. J., 283, 264.Google Scholar
Rosen, S.P. and Gelb, J.M. 1986. Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein enhancement of oscillations as a possible solution to the solar neutrino problem. Phys. Rev., D34, 969.Google Scholar
Ross, J.E. and Aller, L.H. 1976. The chemical composition of the sun. Science, 191, 1223.Google Scholar
Rozsnyai, B.F. 1989. Bracketing the astrophysical opacities for the King IVa mixture. Ap. J., 341, 414.Google Scholar
Simon, N.R. 1982. A plea for reexamining heavy element opacities in stars. Ap. J. Lett, 260, L87.Google Scholar
Spergel, D.N. and Press, W.H. 1985. Effect of hypothetical, weakly interacting, massive particles on energy transport in the solar interior. Ap. J., 294, 663.Google Scholar
Stellingwerf, R.F. 1975a. Modal stability of RR Lyrae stars. Ap. J., 195, 441.Google Scholar
Stellingwerf, R.F. 1975b. Nonlinear effects in double-mode Cepheids. Ap. J., 199, 705.Google Scholar
Stringfellow, G.S., Swenson, F.J., and Faulkner, J. 1987. Is there a classical Hyades lithium problem? BAAS, 19, 1020.Google Scholar