Detailed Chemical Characterization of M Dwarfs: Exploring Planet Formation Around the Most Common Stars

A star and its planets are born from a single cloud of gas and dust, so the chemical compositions of planet host stars encode information on the processes that govern planet formation. Measuring the compositions of M dwarf planet hosts is particularly important because M dwarfs are common, comprising ~70% of stars in our galaxy. However, constraining M dwarf chemistry is a long-standing challenge; M dwarfs are cool enough for molecules to form in their atmospheres, which create complex spectral features that physical models struggle to reproduce. To solve this problem, I constructed the first-ever fully automated model for measuring detailed M dwarf elemental abundances with The Cannon, a data-driven framework. I will apply this model to TESS M dwarf planet hosts observed in the current phase of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V), which is targeting > 100,000 M dwarfs in the TESS footprint. This will enable exploration of population-level trends between planet occurrence rates/architectures and M dwarf host chemistry, and thus shed light on planet formation around the most common stars in our galaxy.