THE PECULIAR SOLAR COMPOSITION AND ITS POSSIBLE RELATION TO PLANET FORMATION

By Jorge Meléndez, Martin Asplund, Bengt Gustafsson, David Yong. 2009

287 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We have conducted a differential elemental abundance analysis of unprecedented accuracy (∼0.01 dex) of the Sun relative to 11 solar twins from the Hipparcos catalog and 10 solar analogs from planet searches. We find that the Sun shows a characteristic signature with a ≈20% depletion of refractory elements relative to the volatile elements in comparison with the solar twins. The abundance differences correlate strongly with the condensation temperatures of the elements. This peculiarity also holds in comparisons with solar analogs known to have close-in giant planets while the majority of solar analogs found not to have such giant planets in radial velocity monitoring show the solar abundance pattern. We discuss various explanations for this peculiarity, including the possibility that the differences in abundance patterns are related to the formation of planetary systems like our own, in particular to the existence of terrestrial planets.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7de991f4fa471ee0e39f1005d4cf9469901f2bd1

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Citations in the corpus

Accurate abundance patterns of solar twins and analogs - Does the anomalous solar chemical composition come from planet formation? (2009, methodology): “3 was first detected by Meléndez et al. (2009), who were able to achieve a precision of 0.01 dex in their derived abundance ratios using spectra of higher quality for eleven southern hemisphere solar twins.”
Effect of episodic accretion on the structure and the lithium depletion of low-mass stars and planet-hosting stars (2010, background): “This result has interesting, although speculative, implications for the recently discovered depletion of refractory elements in theSun.”
Solar Neutrinos: Status and Prospects (2012, background): “Evidence supporting the hypothesis that planet formation could affect the surface metallicity of the 53 host star was offered by Melendez et al. (2009), who found that the peculiar differences in the surface abundances of the Sun, measured relative to similar stars (solar twins), correlate with…”
OXYGEN ABUNDANCES IN NEARBY FGK STARS AND THE GALACTIC CHEMICAL EVOLUTION OF THE LOCAL DISK AND HALO (2013, methodology): “Meléndez et al. (2009) derive an average [O/Fe] = −0.033 ± 0.011 for 11 solar twins while Ramı́rez et al. (2009) find [O/Fe] = −0.015±0.006 using 22 of those objects.”
The Solar Twin Planet Search. I. Fundamental parameters of the stellar sample (2014, methodology): “We targeted a signal-tonoise ratio (S/N) per-pixel of at least 400 at 6000 Å in order to obtain spectra of quality similar to that used by Meléndez et al. (2009), who were the first to detect the proposed chemical signature of terrestrial planet formation.”
FUNDAMENTAL PARAMETERS AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF ARCTURUS (2011, methodology): “A dramatic example of the power of differential analysis is provided by Meléndez et al. (2009) and Ramı́rez et al. (2009), who performed strictly differential analyses of solar twin stars relative to the Sun to determine elemental abundances with unprecedented precision.”
New constraints on the chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood and galactic disc(s) - improved astrophysical parameters for the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey (2011, background): “Though this is still true in many areas of the HR diagram, re- cent data on solar twins (Meléndez et al. 2009; Ramı́rez et al. 2009), new data and analyses of interferometric angular diameters (Boyajian et al. 2010; Chiavassa et al. 2010) and improved HST absolute spectrophotometry (Bohlin 2007)…”
Exploring the Milky Way stellar disk - A detailed elemental abundance study of 714 F and G dwarf stars in the solar neighbourhood (2013, result): “Several studies give opposing results regarding the Sun’s abundance pattern relative to what is seen for the Galactic disk (e.g., Meléndez et al. 2009; Ramírez et al. 2010).”
SOLAR MODELS WITH ACCRETION. I. APPLICATION TO THE SOLAR ABUNDANCE PROBLEM (2011, background): “…for future accretion studies that could be more directly tied to recent evidence for peculiar differences in the surface abundances of the Sun and similar stars (solar twins), and possible connections these differences may have to the chemistry of proto-planetary disks (Meléndez et al. 2009).”
Chemical similarities between Galactic bulge and local thick disk red giants: O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, and Ti (2010, methodology): “…et al. (2003, 2004) and Asplund et al. (2009); (b): solar abundances based on our previous work (Meléndez et al. 2006a; Meléndez & Ramı́rez 2007; Meléndez et al. 2009) using different (e.g. McDonald, Keck, Magellan) solar spectra; (c,d): Our internal zero-points for giants represent the…”
An absolutely calibrated T eff scale from the infrared flux method. Dwarfs and subgiants (2010, methodology): “While for a sample of stars with similar properties this method can yield highly precise relative physical parameters (Meléndez et al. 2009a; Ramı́rez et al. 2009, see Section 3 for its use on solar twins), non-LTE effects and departures from homogeneity can seriously undermine effective…”
High-precision abundances of elements in solar twin stars - Trends with stellar age and elemental condensation temperature (2015, background): “This may be explained by various degrees of sequestration of refractory elements on terrestrial planets (Meléndez et al. 2009) or by dust-gas segregation in circumstellar disks (Gaidos 2015).”