Determining solar abundances using helioseismology

The recent downward revision of solar photospheric abundances of oxygen and other heavy elements has resulted in serious discrepancies between solar models and solar structure as determined through helioseismology. In this work we investigate the possibility of determining the solar heavy-element abundance without reference to spectroscopy by using helioseismic data. Using the dimensionless sound-speed derivative in the solar convection zone, we find that the heavy-element abundance Z = 0.0172 +/- 0.002, which is closer to the older, higher value of the abundances.