Model photospheres for late-type stars from the inversion of high-resolution spectroscopic observations: The Sun

An inversion technique has been developed to recover LTE, one-dimensional, model photospheres for late-type stars from very high resolution, high sign al-to-noise ratio stellar line profiles. It is successfully applied to the Sun by using a set of clean Ti I, Ca I, Cr I, and Fe I normalized line prof iles with accurate transition probabilities, taking advantage of the well-u nderstood collisional enhancement of the wings of the Ca I line at 6162 Ang strom. Line and continuum center-to-limb variations, continuum flux, and wi ngs of strong metal lines are synthesized by means of the model obtained an d are compared with solar observations, as well as with predictions from ot her well-known theoretical and empirical solar models, showing the reliabil ity of the inversion procedure. The prospects for and limitations of the ap plication of this method to other late-type stars are discussed.