C3PO – IV. Co-natal stars depleted in refractories are magnetically more active – possible imprints of planets

• Published in: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol. 538; no. 4; pp. 2408 - 2420
• Main Authors: Yu, Jie, Ting, Yuan-Sen, Casagrande, Luca, Liu, Fan, Wang, Sharon X, Sun, Qinghui, Huber, Daniel, Chen, Boquan, Cordoni, Giacomo, Da Costa, Gary, Huang, Chelsea X, Karakas, Amanda I, Khanna, Shourya, Liu, Junhui, Ness, Melissa K, Nordlander, Thomas, Taylor, John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.04.2025
• Subjects: planets and satellites: formation; stars: abundances; stars: activity; stars: rotation
• ISSN: 0035-8711; 1365-2966; 1365-2966
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staf436

Chemical abundance anomalies in twin stars have recently been considered tell-tale signs of interactions between stars and planets. While such signals are prevalent, their nature remains a subject of debate. On the one hand, exoplanet formation may induce chemical depletion in host stars by locking up refractory elements. On the other hand, exoplanet engulfment can result in chemical enrichment, and both processes potentially produce similar differential signals. In this study, we aim to observationally disentangle these processes by using the Ca ii infrared triplet to measure the magnetic activity of 125 co-moving star pairs with high signal-to-noise ratio, and high-resolution spectra from the Magellan, Keck, and VLT (Very Large Telescope) telescopes. We find that co-natal star pairs in which the two stars exhibit significant chemical abundance differences also show differences in their magnetic activity, with stars depleted in refractories being magnetically more active. Furthermore, the strength of this correlation between differential chemical abundances and differential magnetic activity increases with condensation temperature. One possible explanation is that the chemical anomaly signature may be linked to planet formation, wherein refractory elements are locked into planets, and the host stars become more active due to more efficient contraction during the pre-main-sequence phase or star–planet tidal and magnetic interactions.