Evolved stars and the origin of abundance trends in planet hosts

TL;DR

This study investigates whether evolved stars with planets exhibit chemical peculiarities compared to non-planet hosts, finding stage-dependent differences in refractory element trends linked to stellar mass and age, explained by Galactic radial mixing.

Contribution

It provides a consistent analysis of metallicity and element abundances in evolved and main sequence stars, revealing stage-dependent chemical trends related to planet hosting.

Findings

No overall difference in [X/Fe] vs. Tc slopes between planet and non-planet hosts.

Differences in refractory element trends are present in MS and subgiant stars, but not in giants.

Correlations found between Tc-slopes and stellar mass and age.

Abstract

Tentative evidence that the properties of evolved stars with planets may be different from what we know for MS hosts has been recently reported. We aim to test whether evolved stars with planets show any chemical peculiarity that could be related to the planet formation process. We determine in a consistent way the metallicity and individual abundances of a large sample of evolved (subgiants and red giants) and MS stars with and without known planetary companions. No differences in the <[X/Fe]> vs. condensation temperature (Tc) slopes are found between the samples of planet and non-planet hosts when all elements are considered. However, if the analysis is restricted to only refractory elements, differences in the Tc-slopes between stars with and without known planets are found. This result is found to be dependent on the stellar evolutionary stage, as it holds for MS and subgiant stars, while there seem to be no difference between planet and non-planet hosts among the sample of giants. A search for correlations between the Tc-slope and the stellar properties reveals significant correlations with the stellar mass and the stellar age. The data also suggest that differences in terms of mass and age between MS planet and non-planet hosts may be present. Our results are well explained by radial mixing in the Galaxy. The sample of giant contains stars more massive and younger than their MS counterparts. This leads to a sample of stars possibly less contaminated by stars not born in the solar neighbourhood, leading to no chemical differences between planet and non planet hosts. The sample of MS stars may contain more stars from the outer disc (specially the non-planet host sample) which might led to the differences observed in the chemical trends.