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Paper: Plausibility of the Planet-Engulfing Scenario for V838 Mon from the Current Knowledge of Extrasolar Planets
Volume: 363, The Nature of V838 Mon and its Light Echo
Page: 266
Authors: Desidera, S.
Abstract: One of the hypotheses to explain the outburst of V838 Mon is the engulfment of planets. More than 170 extrasolar planets were discovered in the past years. Their properties and the characteristics of their host stars can be used to evaluate the plausibility of this hypothesis. However, the large mass and young age of V838 Mon make the object rather different from the typical targets of current planet searches. Therefore, the expectations of planet engulfing events derived from them are not directly applicable to the case of V838 Mon. Some of the properties of V838 Mon (as the probable large stellar mass and sub-solar metallicity) make the presence of planets around it somewhat unlikely, but the uncertainty of the mass and age of the progenitor and the lack of knowledge of planet formation around massive stars do not allow a firm conclusion.
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