Helioseismology, Solar Models and Solar Neutrinos

INTRODUCTION The early attempts to explain the so-called solar neutrino problem, i.e., the discrepancy between the measured flux of neutrinos and the predictions of solar models, generally concentrated on what might be called astrophysical solutions: modifications of some aspect of the model calculation aimed at reducing the central temperature of the model and hence the predicted neutrino production rate. Several such models were in fact constructed, although only with rather drastic assumptions. Furthermore, independent verification of these assumptions and of the resulting models was in general not possible. Indeed, although the evidence for nuclear reactions in the solar core, obtained from the neutrinos, is of fundamental importance, the measured neutrino counting rates are rather crude probes of conditions in the solar centre. Also, the combined evidence from the independent neutrino detectors now operating makes an astrophysical solutio