A Bayesian Search for Planet Engulfment Signatures in Solar Analogs

arXiv:2607.03504 · astro-ph.EP, astro-ph.SR · Submitted 2026-07-03 · Read on arXiv

Zimo Cheng, Sharon Xuesong Wang, Fan Liu, Haiyang Wang, Qinghui Sun, Johannes Buchner, Mia Babatsikos, Huiling Chen, Jiayue Zhang, Yuan-Sen Ting, Zhen Guo, Aaron Dotter, Serat M. Saad, Javier Osses

astro-ph.EP, astro-ph.SR

Submitted: 2026-07-03

Comments: 9 pages of main text, 15 pages of appendices and references, 9 figures, and 6 tables. Submitted to AAS Journals. Machine-readable tables available upon request. Comments welcome. See also Babatsikos et al. at arXiv:2607.01699

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: We present a systematic Bayesian search for chemical fingerprints of planet engulfment in 113 solar twins and analogs with high-precision abundance measurements, 45 of which host known or candidate

Terminology

Abundance — 122× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
Core — 3× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
Metallicity — 3× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
Bayesian Framework — 2× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
Bayesian Inference — 2× in this paper · explained in 5 episodes
Calibration — 2× in this paper · explained in 7 episodes
Consistency — 2× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
Accuracy — 1× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
Degeneracy — 1× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
Diffusion Model — 1× in this paper · explained in 8 episodes
Diffusion Models — 1× in this paper · explained in 6 episodes
Homogeneity — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
Robustness — 1× in this paper · explained in 5 episodes
Spectral Signature — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes

Abstract

We present a systematic Bayesian search for chemical fingerprints of planet engulfment in 113 solar twins and analogs with high-precision abundance measurements, 45 of which host known or candidate planets or brown-dwarf companions. We constructed a Bayesian framework with three sets of abundance models: random scatter, Galactic chemical evolution, and planet engulfment with bulk Earth or CM chondrite compositions. Through model comparisons, we identified three candidates whose abundance patterns strongly favor planet engulfment over the alternatives, with inferred engulfed masses of about 7.5-33 Earth masses. Our findings correspond to a nominal detection rate of 1-3% for planet-engulfment signatures among solar analogs. This work extends abundance-based engulfment searches beyond the binary-star context and provides a framework for probing star-planet co-evolution with solar analogs, which goes beyond the commonly used abundance-condensation-temperature correlation (Tc slope).

Terminology

Abstract

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