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We investigate the hypothesis that ingestion of a terrestrial or super-Earthplanet could cause the anomalously high metal abundances seen in a turn-offstar in the open cluster M67, when compared to other turn-off stars in the samecluster. We show that the mass in convective envelope of the star is likelyonly $3.45\,\times 10^{-3}\,{\rm M}_\odot$, and hence $5.2\,{\rm M}_\oplus$ ofrock is required to obtain the observed 0.128 dex metal enhancement. Rockyplanets dissolve entirely in the convective envelope if they enter it withsufficiently tangential orbits: we find that the critical condition fordissolution is that the planet's radial speed must be less than 40% of itstotal velocity at the stellar surface; or, equivalently, the impact parametermust be greater than about 0.9. We model the delivery of rocky planets to thestellar surface both by planet-planet scattering in a realistic multi-planetsystem, and by Lidov-Kozai cycles driven by a more massive planetary or stellarcompanion. In both cases almost all planets that are ingested arrive at thestar on grazing orbits and hence will dissolve in the surface convection zone.We conclude that super-Earth ingestion is a good explanation for the metalenhancement in M67 Y2235, and that a high-resolution spectroscopic survey ofstellar abundances around the turn-off and main sequence of M67 has thepotential to constrain the frequency of late-time dynamical instability inplanetary systems.

Super-Earth ingestion can explain the anomalously high metal abundances of M67 Y2235