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Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto

Is There Plenty of Metal-poor Stars with Planets in the Galactic Thick Disk?

V. Zh. Adibekyan, N. C. Santos, S. G. Sousa, G. Israelian, P. Figueira

Abstract
We performed an uniform spectroscopic analysis of 1111 FGK dwarfs observed as part of the HARPS GTO planet search program. We applied a purely chemical approach, based on [α/Fe] ratio, to distinguish the various stellar components in the Galaxy. Apart from the well known Galactic thick and thin disks, we separated an α-enhanced stellar family at super-solar metallicities. The metal-rich high-α stars have orbits similar to the thin disk stars, but they are similar to thick disk stars in terms of age. Our data indicate that the incidence of stars with planets are greater among the chemically separated thick disk stars with [Fe/H] ≲ -0.3 dex than they are among thin disk stars in the same [Fe/H] interval. Our results allow us to suppose that a certain chemical composition, and not the Galactic birth place of the stars, is the causative factor for that.

New Quests in Stellar Astrophysics III: A Panchromatic View of Solar-like Stars, With and Without Planets
(Eds.) M. Chavez, E. Bertone, O. Vega, V. De la Luz

Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Vol. 472, Page 117
2013

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Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences

Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (IA) is a new but long anticipated research infrastructure with a national dimension. It embodies a bold but feasible vision for the development of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal, taking full advantage and fully realizing the potential created by the national membership of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). IA resulted from the merging the two most prominent research units in the field in Portugal: the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto (CAUP) and the Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics of the University of Lisbon (CAAUL). It currently hosts more than two-thirds of all active researchers working in Space Sciences in Portugal, and is responsible for an even greater fraction of the national productivity in international ISI journals in the area of Space Sciences. This is the scientific area with the highest relative impact factor (1.65 times above the international average) and the field with the highest average number of citations per article for Portugal.

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