THE POSSIBILITY OF FORMING AN INHOMOGENEOUS SUN AND THE SOLAR-NEUTRINO DEFICIT

Recent observations confirm that the flux of neutrinos from the interi or of the Sun is significantly less than what is expected on the basis of solar. models. It has long been known that a low neutrino flux cou ld result from a temperature in the Sun's core lower than the approxim ately 1.5 x 10(7) K central temperature given by standard solar models . A low central temperature could occur if the solar interior were dep leted in the so-called metals-atomic species heavier than helium-resul ting in lower internal opacity. In this case, chemical abundances meas ured in the solar convection zone would be unrepresentative of the dee p-interior abundances. The possibility of a compositionally inhomogene ous Sun has usually been discarded on the basis of cosmogonical argume nts against the formation of such nonhomogeneity. This paper suggests that compositional nonhomogeneity could have arisen through unremarkab le physical processes during the formation of the Sun, and that a comp ositionally inhomogeneous Sun remains a viable possibility for investi gation of the solar neutrino problem.