Lithium in stars with exoplanets

Abstract

AbstractOur recent study of solar-type stars from the HARPS GTO sample provides highly accurate information with regard to Lithium abundances in stars with and without detected planets (Israelian et al. 2009). When the Li abundances of planet bearing stars are compared with the “single” stars, we find an excess of Li depletion in planet hosts with effective temperatures in the range 5700-5850 K. We also found that small amounts of Li have survived in the atmospheres of some planet-host solar analogs. Enhanced Li depletion in planet host stars puts constraints on mixing processes responsible for this phenomenon. We show that neither age nor metallicity are responsible for this observational fact.