Helioseismic inference of the solar radiative opacity

Gaël Buldgen (), Jean-Christophe Pain, Philippe Cossé, Christophe Blancard, Franck Gilleron, Anil K. Pradhan, Christopher J. Fontes, James Colgan, Arlette Noels, Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard, Morgan Deal, Sergey V. Ayukov, Vladimir A. Baturin, Anna V. Oreshina, Richard Scuflaire, Charly Pinçon, Yveline Lebreton, Thierry Corbard, Patrick Eggenberger, Peter Hakel and David P. Kilcrease
Additional contact information
Gaël Buldgen: STAR Institute, Université de Liège
Jean-Christophe Pain: DIF
Philippe Cossé: DIF
Christophe Blancard: DIF
Franck Gilleron: DIF
Anil K. Pradhan: Dept. Astronomy
Christopher J. Fontes: Los Alamos National Laboratory
James Colgan: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Arlette Noels: Université de Genève
Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard: Aarhus University
Morgan Deal: Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Place Eugène Bataillon
Sergey V. Ayukov: Lomonosov Moscow State University
Vladimir A. Baturin: Lomonosov Moscow State University
Anna V. Oreshina: Lomonosov Moscow State University
Richard Scuflaire: STAR Institute, Université de Liège
Charly Pinçon: CNRS
Yveline Lebreton: Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité
Thierry Corbard: Laboratoire Lagrange
Patrick Eggenberger: Université de Genève
Peter Hakel: Los Alamos National Laboratory
David P. Kilcrease: Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract The Sun is the most studied of all stars, and thus constitutes a benchmark for stellar models. However, our vision of the Sun is still incomplete, as illustrated by the current debate on its chemical composition. The problem reaches far beyond chemical abundances and is intimately linked to microscopic and macroscopic physical ingredients of solar models such as radiative opacity, for which experimental results have been recently measured that still await theoretical explanations. We present opacity profiles derived from helioseismic inferences and compare them with detailed theoretical computations of individual element contributions using three different opacity computation codes, in a complementary way to experimental results. We find that our seismic opacity is about 10% higher than theoretical values used in current solar models around 2 million degrees, but lower by 35% than some recent available theoretical values. Using the Sun as a laboratory of fundamental physics, we show that quantitative comparisons between various opacity tables are required to understand the origin of the discrepancies between reported helioseismic, theoretical and experimental opacity values.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54793-y

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