KELT-17: a chemically peculiar Am star and a hot-Jupiter planet

Abstract

Context. There is very little information to be found in the literature regarding the detection of planets orbiting chemically peculiar stars. Aims. Our aim is to determine the detailed chemical composition of the remarkable planet host star KELT-17. This object hosts a hot-Jupiter planet with 1.31 MJup detected by transits, and it is one of the more massive and rapidly rotating planet hosts seen to date. We set out to derive a complete chemical pattern for this star, in order to compare it with those of chemically peculiar stars. Methods. We carried out a detailed abundance determination in the planet host star KELT-17 via spectral synthesis. Stellar parameters were estimated iteratively by fitting Balmer line profiles and imposing the Fe ionization balance using the SYNTHE program together with plane-parallel ATLAS12 model atmospheres. Specific opacities for an arbitrary composition and microturbulence velocity vmicro were calculated through the opacity sampling (OS) method. The abundances were determined iteratively by fitting synthetic spectra to metallic lines of 16 different chemical species using SYNTHE. The complete chemical pattern of KELT-17 was compared to the recently published average pattern of Am stars. We estimated the stellar radius using two methods: a) comparing the synthetic spectral energy distribution with the available photometric data and the Gaia parallax, and b) using a Bayesian estimation of stellar parameters using stellar isochrones. Results. We found over-abundances of Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Zn, Sr, Y, Zr, and Ba, together with subsolar values of Ca and Sc. Notably, the chemical pattern agrees with those recently published for Am stars, making KELT-17 the first exoplanet host whose complete chemical pattern is unambiguously identified with this class. The stellar radius derived by two different methods agrees to each other and with those previously obtained in the literature.