This tutorial will introduce you to the Solar Abundances Tool. It will cover the various features of the tool and how to use it using the default values. At this point it may be helpful to launch the Solar Abundances Tool.
Upload Table
After launching the tool, the first panel you'll see is the 'Upload Table' panel. This panel will load a table of solar abundances from an XML file you provide or a set of default values from the work done by Anders and Grevesse.
Begin by clicking the 'Use Default Abundances' button in the 'Upload Table' panel.
When the table has successfully loaded, you should see a screen like the one below. Click next to proceed.
Sort Data
The next panel is the 'Sort Data' Panel. This panel has been designed to help sort all of the solar abundance data. Here, you may choose to sort the data by atomic number (Z), mass number (A), neutron number (N), or by abundance. Also, you may choose ascending or descending order in order to find the information most relevant for you.
For this tutorial select 'Z' in the 'Sort by' drop down menu and select the 'Ascending' radio button.
Click 'View Abundance Table' to proceed. The Abundance Table will appear in a new window.
To explore some of the other features of this tool, return to the Solar Abundances Tool and click 'Next'
Plot Abundances
The 'Plot Abundances' Panel allows you to view a plot of the solar abundances grouped together by either Z, A, or N. This means that all nuclides that share the same Atomic Number (Z), for example, will be summed and plotted as one data point.
For this tutorial, select 'Z' from the 'plot on x-axis' drop down menu and select 'Logarithmic' from the 'y-axis type' drop down. Now, click 'View Plot'.
This will yield a plot like this.
In the window that comes up there is a 'View Data' button that will bring up another window that has all the data points that are contained in the plot.
Return to the Solar Abundances Tool and click 'Next' to proceed to the next panel.
Table of Abundances
The 'Table of Abundances' will create a table that contains all the grouped abundances. Select each of the available elements as shown below and click 'View HTML Table' or 'View ASCII Table'.
The HTML table will look like this.
An ASCII table will look like this.
Return to the Solar Abundances Tool and click 'Next' to access the next feature.
Plot All
The Plot All panel will generate plots using the data from each individual nuclide.
The example we'll use in this tutorial is to plot Abundance vs A. To do this, select 'A' from the 'plot on x-axis' and 'Abundance' from the 'plot on y-axis'. In addition, select 'Logarithmic' from the 'y-axis type'. Check the box marked 'check box to display data points'. This will make a second check appear, 'check box to turn off line connections', and check it also.
After all these settings have been changed, click 'View Plot' to create a Plot like the one below.
Full Table
The 'Full Table' panel will generate a table with all the data for the individual nuclides.
Check all the boxes and click the 'View HTML Table' or 'View ASCII Table'.
Like the 'Abundances Table' panel, these buttons will generate the tables. Click either 'View HTML Table' or 'View ASCII Table'
Challenge
What nuclide is the 5th most abundant? What is the total abundance of the element associated with this nuclide?
