Compact multi-planet systems are more common around metal poor hosts

TL;DR

This study finds that compact multi-planet systems are more common around metal-poor stars, suggesting that such systems are underrepresented in previous surveys due to observational biases and that new instruments could improve detection around these stars.

Contribution

It demonstrates a higher occurrence of compact multi-planet systems around low-metallicity stars using spectroscopic data, challenging previous biases in planet detection.

Findings

Compact multi-planet systems are more frequent around metal-poor stars.

High-metallicity stars show a constant fraction of compact systems despite more giant planets.

Radial velocity searches have historically focused on high-metallicity stars.

Abstract

In systems with detected planets, hot-Jupiters and compact systems of multiple planets are nearly mutually exclusive. We compare the relative occurrence of these two architectures as a fraction of detected planetary systems to determine the role that metallicity plays in planet formation. We show that compact multi-planet systems occur more frequently around stars of increasingly lower metallicities using spectroscopically derived abundances for more than 700 planet hosts. At higher metallicities, compact multi-planet systems comprise a nearly constant fraction of the planet hosts despite the steep rise in the fraction of hosts containing hot and cool-Jupiters. Since metal poor stars have been underrepresented in planet searches, this implies that the occurrence rate of compact multis is higher than previously reported. Due to observational limits, radial velocity planet searches have focused mainly on high-metallicity stars where they have a higher chance of finding giant planets. New extreme-precision radial velocity instruments coming online that can detect these compact multi-planet systems can target lower metallicity stars to find them.