Parent stars of extrasolar planets - IX. Lithium abundances

Abstract

We compare the Li abundances of a sample of stars with planets discovered with the Doppler method to a sample of stars without detected planets. We prepared the samples by combining the Li abundances reported in several recent studies in a consistent way. Our results confirm recent claims that the Li abundances of stars with planets are smaller than those of stars without planets near the solar temperature. We also find that the vsini and R′HK anomalies correlate with the Li abundance anomalies. These results suggest that planet formation processes have altered the rotation and Li abundances of stars that host Doppler-detected planets. We encourage others to test these findings with additional observations of Li in stars with temperatures between 5600 and 6200 K. © 2008 The Author.