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1. The First Evidence of a Host Star Metallicity Cutoff in the Formation of Super-Earth Planets

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ad6570  

   Boley, Kiersten M; Christiansen, Jessie L; Zink, Jon; Hardegree-Ullman, Kevin; Lee, Eve J; Hopkins, Philip F; Wang_王, Ji 吉; Fernandes, Rachel B; Bergsten, Galen J; Bhure, Sakhee (August 2024, The Astronomical Journal)

   Abstract Planet formation is expected to be severely limited in disks of low metallicity, owing to both the small solid mass reservoir and the low-opacity accelerating the disk gas dissipation. While previous studies have found a weak correlation between the occurrence rates of small planets (≲4R_⊕) and stellar metallicity, so far no studies have probed below the metallicity limit beyond which planet formation is predicted to be suppressed. Here, we constructed a large catalog of ∼110,000 metal-poor stars observed by the TESS mission with spectroscopically derived metallicities, and systematically probed planet formation within the metal-poor regime ([Fe/H] ≤−0.5) for the first time. Extrapolating known higher-metallicity trends for small, short-period planets predicts the discovery of ∼68 super-Earths around these stars (∼85,000 stars) after accounting for survey completeness; however, we detect none. As a result, we have placed the most stringent upper limit on super-Earth occurrence rates around metal-poor stars (−0.75 < [Fe/H] ≤ −0.5) to date, ≤ 1.67%, a statistically significant (p-value = 0.000685) deviation from the prediction of metallicity trends derived with Kepler and K2. We find a clear host star metallicity cliff for super-Earths that could indicate the threshold below which planets are unable to grow beyond an Earth-mass at short orbital periods. This finding provides a crucial input to planet-formation theories, and has implications for the small planet inventory of the Galaxy and the galactic epoch at which the formation of small planets started. 

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2. The Epoch of Giant Planet Migration Planet Search Program. III. The Occurrence Rate of Young Giant Planets inside the Water Ice Line ^*

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ade230  

   Tran, Quang H; Bowler, Brendan P; Cochran, William D; Bender, Chad F; Halverson, Samuel; Mahadevan, Suvrath; Ninan, Joe P; Robertson, Paul; Roy, Arpita; Stefánsson, Guðmundur; et al (July 2025, The Astronomical Journal)

   Abstract We present statistical results from the Epoch of Giant Planet Migration RV planet search program. This survey was designed to measure the occurrence rate of giant planets interior to the water ice line of young Sun-like stars, compare this to the prevalence of giant planets at older ages, and provide constraints on the timescale and dominant inward migration mechanism of giant planets. Our final sample amounts to 85 single young (20–200 Myr) G and K dwarfs that we target across a 4 yr time baseline with the near-infrared Habitable-zone Planet Finder spectrograph at McDonald Observatory’s Hobby-Eberly Telescope. As part of this survey, we discovered the young hot Jupiter HS Psc b. We characterize survey detection completeness with realistic injection-recovery tests and measure an occurrence rate of $1.9_{-1.4}^{+2.6}$% for intermediate-age giant planets ( $0.3M_{\mathrm{J}}<m\sin i<13M_{\mathrm{J}}$) within 2.5 au. This is lower than the field age occurrence rate for the same planet masses and separations and favors an increase in the prevalence of giant planets over time from ∼100 Myr to several Gyr, although our results cannot rule out a constant rate. A decaying planet occurrence rate is, however, strongly excluded. This suggests that giant planets located inside the water ice line originate from a combination of in situ formation or early migration coupled with longer-term inward scattering. The completeness-corrected prevalence of young hot Jupiters in our sample is $1.5_{-1.1}^{+2.2}$% —similar to the rate for field stars—and the 95% upper limit for young brown dwarfs within 5000 days is <3.6% . 

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3. Mid-to-late M Dwarfs Lack Jupiter Analogs

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/acd349  

   Pass, Emily K; Winters, Jennifer G; Charbonneau, David; Irwin, Jonathan M; Latham, David W; Berlind, Perry; Calkins, Michael L; Esquerdo, Gilbert A; Mink, Jessica (June 2023, The Astronomical Journal)

   Abstract Cold Jovian planets play an important role in sculpting the dynamical environment in which inner terrestrial planets form. The core accretion model predicts that giant planets cannot form around low-mass M dwarfs, although this idea has been challenged by recent planet discoveries. Here, we investigate the occurrence rate of giant planets around low-mass (0.1–0.3M_⊙) M dwarfs. We monitor a volume-complete, inactive sample of 200 such stars located within 15 pc, collecting four high-resolution spectra of each M dwarf over six years and performing intensive follow-up monitoring of two candidate radial velocity variables. We use TRES on the 1.5 m telescope at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory and CHIRON on the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory 1.5 m telescope for our primary campaign, and MAROON-X on Gemini-North for high-precision follow up. We place a 95% confidence upper limit of 1.5% (68% confidence limit of 0.57%) on the occurrence ofM_Psini> 1M_Jgiant planets out to the water snow line and provide additional constraints on the giant planet population as a function ofM_Psiniand period. Beyond the snow line (100 K <T_eq< 150 K), we place 95% confidence upper limits of 1.5%, 1.7%, and 4.4% (68% confidence limits of 0.58%, 0.66%, and 1.7%) for 3M_J<M_Psini< 10M_J, 0.8M_J<M_Psini< 3M_J, and 0.3M_J<M_Psini< 0.8M_Jgiant planets, respectively; i.e., Jupiter analogs are rare around low-mass M dwarfs. In contrast, surveys of Sun-like stars have found that their giant planets are most common at these Jupiter-like instellations. 

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4. On the pollution of white dwarfs by exo-Oort cloud comets

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2281  

   O’Connor, Christopher_E; Lai, Dong; Seligman, Darryl_Z (July 2023, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT A large fraction of white dwarfs (WDs) have metal-polluted atmospheres, which are produced by accreting material from remnant planetary systems. The composition of the accreted debris broadly resembles that of rocky Solar system objects. Volatile-enriched debris with compositions similar to long-period comets (LPCs) is rarely observed. We attempt to reconcile this dearth of volatiles with the premise that exo-Oort clouds (XOCs) occur around a large fraction of planet-hosting stars. We estimate the comet accretion rate from an XOC analytically, adapting the ‘loss cone’ theory of LPC delivery in the Solar system. We investigate the dynamical evolution of an XOC during late stellar evolution. Using numerical simulations, we show that 1–30 per cent of XOC objects remain bound after anisotropic stellar mass-loss imparting a WD natal kick of $${\sim}1 \, {\rm km \, s^{-1}}$$. We also characterize the surviving comets’ distribution function. Surviving planets orbiting a WD can prevent the accretion of XOC comets by the star. A planet’s ‘dynamical barrier’ is effective at preventing comet accretion if the energy kick imparted by the planet exceeds the comet’s orbital binding energy. By modifying the loss cone theory, we calculate the amount by which a planet reduces the WD’s accretion rate. We suggest that the scarcity of volatile-enriched debris in polluted WDs is caused by an unseen population of 10–$$100 \, \mathrm{au}$$ scale giant planets acting as barriers to incoming LPCs. Finally, we constrain the amount of volatiles delivered to a planet in the habitable zone of an old, cool WD. 

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5. Connections between Planetary Populations and Chemical Characteristics of Their Host Stars

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad5722  

   Yun, Sol; Lee, Young Sun; Kim, Young Kwang; Beers, Timothy C; Togay, Berfin; Lim, Dongwook (August 2024, The Astrophysical Journal)

   Abstract Chemical anomalies in planet-hosting stars (PHSs) are studied in order to assess how the planetary nature and multiplicity affect the atmospheric chemical abundances of their host stars. We employ APOGEE DR17 to select thin-disk stars of the Milky Way, and crossmatch them with the Kepler Input Catalog to identify confirmed PHSs, which results in 227 PHSs with available chemical abundance ratios for six refractory elements. We also examine an ensemble of stars without planet signals, which are equivalent to the selected PHSs in terms of evolutionary stage and stellar parameters, to correct for Galactic chemical evolution effects, and derive the abundance gradient of refractory elements over the condensation temperature for the PHSs. Using the Galactic chemical evolution corrected abundances, we find that our PHSs do not show a significant difference in abundance slope from the stars without planets. However, when we examine the trends of the refractory elements of PHSs, based on the total number of their planets and their planet types, we find that the PHSs with giant planets are more depleted in refractory elements than those with rocky planets. Among the PHSs with rocky planets, the refractory depletion trends are potentially correlated with the terrestrial planets’ radii and multiplicity. In the cases of PHSs with giant planets, sub-Jovian PHSs demonstrate more depleted refractory trends than stars hosting Jovian-mass planets, raising questions on different planetary formation processes for Neptune-like and Jupiter-like planets. 

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