How Does the Presence of Extrasolar Planets Affect the X-ray Output of Hot Stars?

Abstract

O and B-type stars are among the hottest, most luminous, and most massive stars in space, with O-stars comprising a mere 0.00003% of main sequence stars. Due to their extreme temperatures, appreciable amounts of ionizing radiation are emitted in the form of X-rays. O-stars generally follow the 10-7 Law, where one ten-millionth of the star’s luminosity comes out as X-rays. Using results from Berghofer et. al., our goal was to determine if the presence of exoplanets around O-stars could explain the scatter about the canonical 10-7 Law.