Chemical abundances of neutron capture elements in exoplanet-hosting stars

TL;DR

This study investigates the chemical abundances of neutron capture elements in stars with and without planets, revealing that observed differences are mainly due to stellar population effects rather than planet presence.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of neutron capture element abundances in a large stellar sample, emphasizing the importance of stellar population context in interpreting chemical differences.

Findings

Planet hosts have higher Zn at low metallicity.

Stars with planets show underabundance of Ba, Sr, Ce, Zr, especially for low-mass planet hosts.

Most abundance differences are explained by Galactic stellar populations, not planet presence.

Abstract

To understand the formation and composition of planetary systems it is important to study their host stars composition since both are formed in the same stellar nebula. In this work we analyze the behaviour of chemical abundances of Cu, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, Ce, Nd and Eu in the large and homogeneous HARPS-GTO planet search sample ($R \sim$ 115000). This sample is composed of 120 stars hosting high-mass planets, 29 stars hosting exclusively Neptunians and Super-Earths and 910 stars without detected giant planets. We compare the [X/Fe] ratios of such elements in different metallicity bins and we find that planet hosts present higher abundances of Zn for [Fe/H]$<$--0.1 dex. On the other hand, Ba, Sr, Ce and Zr abundances are underabundant in stars with planets, with a bigger difference for stars only hosting low-mass planets. However, most of the offsets found can be explained by differences in stellar parameters and by the fact that planet hosts at low metallicity mostly belong to the Galactic thick disk. Only in the case of Ba we find a statistically significant (3$\sigma$) underabundance of 0.03 dex for low-mass planet hosts. The origin of these elements is quite complex due to their evolution during the history of the Galaxy. Therefore, it is necessary to understand and characterize the stellar populations to which planet hosts belong in order to do a fair comparison with stars without detected planets. This work demonstrates that the effects of Galactic chemical evolution and not the presence of planets mostly account for the differences we find.