Confirming the Metal-Rich Nature of Stars with Giant Planets
Nuno C. Santos, Garik Israelian, & Michel Mayor
Institute: Geneva Observatory, Switzerland
Institute: Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Spain
Contact Email: nuno.santos@obs.unige.ch
Abstract:
With the goal of confirming the metallicity "excess" observed in
stars with planetary mass companions, we have conducted a high-precision
spectroscopic study of a "comparison" sample of dwarfs included in
the CORALIE extra-solar planet survey (Santos, Israelian, & Mayor 2001).
The targets were chosen following two basic criteria: they make part of
a limited volume and they do not present the signature of a planetary
host companion. The spectroscopic analysis, done using the very same
technique as previous works on the metallicity of stars with planets,
permitted a direct and non-biased comparison of the samples. The results
have revealed that metallicity plays an impressive role on the giant planet
formation. The chemical composition of the molecular cloud is
probably the key parameter to form giant planets. Some evidences
exist, however, showing the possibility of accretion of matter in the
stellar outer convective zone. These conclusions impose serious constraints
on the planetary systems formation and evolution models.
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Manuscript submitted: 2001-Aug-31
"The Future of Cool-Star Astrophysics", 2003, Eds. A. Brown,
G. M. Harper, & T. R. Ayres.
Proceedings of 12th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems,
& The Sun,
© 2003 University of Colorado.