Probes of the solar interior

Abstract

The interior of the sun is not directly accessible to observations. Nonetheless, it is possible to infer the physical conditions prevailing in the solar interior with the help of theory of stellar structure and the powerful observational input provided by the measurements of solar neutrino fluxes and by the accurate helioseismic data. It turns out that the standard solar model gives a satisfactory description of the thermal profile throughout the sun's inside. A cooler solar core is therefore, not a viable solution to account for the deficit in the measured solar neutrino fluxes, and the answer to the solar neutrino puzzle should probably be sought in the realm of particle physics.