Plausibility of the planet-engulfing scenario for V838 Mon

Abstract

One of the hypothesis 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 of 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 somewhat unlikely the presence of planets around it, but the uncertainty on the mass and age of the progenitor and the lack of knowledge of planet formation around massive star do not allow a firm conclusion.