COMPOSITION OF THE SOLAR CORONA, SOLAR WIND, AND SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLES

Along with temperature and density, the elemental abundance is a basic parameter required by astronomers to understand and model any physical system. The abundances of the solar corona are known to differ from those of the solar photosphere via a mechanism related to the first ionization potential of the element, but the normalization of these values with respect to hydrogen is challenging. Here, we show that the values used by solar physicists for over a decade and currently referred to as the coronal abundances do not agree with the data themselves. As a result, recent analysis and interpretation of solar data involving coronal abundances may need to be revised. We use observations from coronal spectroscopy, the solar wind, and solar energetic particles as well as the latest abundances of the solar photosphere to establish a new set of abundances that reflect our current understanding of the coronal plasma.