Seismology of the solar core

Abstract

The accurately observed solar p-mode frequencies are employed to constrain the temperature and chemical composition profiles in the solar core. An iterative procedure is adopted to perform a primary inversion of the helioseismic data, using the mechanical constraints to obtain the variation of density and sound speed in the solar interior. The secondary inversion adopts the equations of thermal equilibrium, with the additional constraints such as the equation of state, the opacity, the nuclear energy generation rate and the observed solar luminosity for deriving the temperature and chemical composition profiles in the solar core. The iterative technique can be effectively applied to infer the radial as well as latitudinal variation of the Sun's rotation rate from the observed rotational splittings. It turns out that the observed surface differential rotation persists through the solar convection zone, while the solar core appears to rotate slower than the equatorial regions at the solar surface.