CN Neutrinos and the Sun's Primordial Core Metalicity

TL;DR

This paper explores how neutrino measurements from the Sun's core can help determine its primordial metal content, testing solar models and recent abundance measurements, and considering a two-zone solar structure hypothesis.

Contribution

It proposes using CN-cycle neutrinos to constrain the Sun's initial C and N abundances, offering a new method to test solar composition models.

Findings

Neutrino measurements can constrain primordial C and N abundances.

A two-zone solar model could explain abundance discrepancies.

Neutrino data may validate or challenge the standard solar model.

Abstract

I discuss the use of neutrinos from the CN cycle and pp chain to constrain the primordial solar core abundances of C and N at an interesting level of precision. A comparison of the Sun's deep interior and surface compositions would test a key assumption of the standard solar model (SSM), a homogeneous zero-age Sun. It would also provide a cross-check on recent photospheric abundance determinations that have altered the once excellent agreement between the SSM and helioseismology. Motivated by the discrepancy between convective-zone abundances and helioseismology, I discuss the possibility that a two-zone Sun could emerge from late-stage metal differentiation in the solar nebula connected with formation of the gaseous giant planets.