Published in

American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 1(725), p. 721-733, 2010

DOI: 10.1088/0004-637x/725/1/721

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Metallicities of Planet Hosting Stars: A Sample of Giants and Subgiants

Journal article published in 2010 by L. Ghezzi, K. Cunha, S. C. Schuler ORCID, V. V. Smith
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

This work presents a homogeneous derivation of atmospheric parameters and iron abundances for a sample of giant and subgiant stars which host giant planets, as well as a control sample of subgiant stars not known to host giant planets. The analysis is done using the same technique as for our previous analysis of a large sample of planet-hosting and control sample dwarf stars. A comparison between the distributions of [Fe/H] in planet-hosting main-sequence stars, subgiants, and giants within these samples finds that the main-sequence stars and subgiants have the same mean metallicity of <[Fe/H]> =~ +0.11 dex, while the giant sample is typically more metal poor, having an average metallicity of <[Fe/H]> = -0.06 dex. The fact that the subgiants have the same average metallicities as the dwarfs indicates that significant accretion of solid metal-rich material onto the planet-hosting stars has not taken place, as such material would be diluted in the evolution from dwarf to subgiant. The lower metallicity found for the planet-hosting giant stars in comparison with the planet-hosting dwarfs and subgiants is interpreted as being related to the underlying stellar mass, with giants having larger masses and thus, on average larger-mass protoplanetary disks. In core accretion models of planet formation, larger disk masses can contain the critical amount of metals necessary to form giant planets even at lower metallicities. Comment: 38 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ