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 Title: 

            Constraining the origin of high metallicity in planet host stars

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 Authors:

          Ann Marie Cody, California Institute of Technology

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 Abstract:

          The idea that large amounts of metal-rich material may fall into some stars has received much attention following the observation that stars harboring planets have relatively high metallicities.  It is debated as to whether the high metal content persists down to the core of these stars, or is instead an indication that polluting material from dust or infalling planets has been deposited in the stellar convection zone and remains restricted to the surface layers. We discuss recent work to distinguish between these scenarios through stellar evolution and seismology. In particular, we show that such sharp changes in a star's internal metallicity profile should have a distinct effect on the nonradial stellar oscillation frequencies and review recent efforts to detect this seismological feature with current observational technology.

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