What is the relationship between stars, lithium, and exoplanets?

[Arch2008]

“There are several ways in which a planet can disturb the internal motions of matter in its host star, thereby rearrange the distribution of the various chemical elements and possibly cause the destruction of lithium. It is now up to the theoreticians to figure out which one is the most likely to happen,”

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2009/pr-42-09.html

FYI, a lack of lithium in a star may indicate the presence of exoplanets. This could be a short cut for exoplanet hunters.

 

[Wallace]

I don't know a great deal about exoplanets, but I know that exoplanet hunters do use the lithium line strength of stars to increase the odds of targetting stars that have planets. I thought it was the reverse though, i.e. high lithium abundance indicated higher chance of having planets, but I may be mistaken.

 

[Arch2008]

That doesn't seem to be what the ESO is saying.

 

[Wallace]

I just did a quick literature search to sort this out. So, looks like there was a thought a few years ago that stars with planets might have more Li, for instance http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001Natur.411..163I" paper. Everything I found since then (2002) agrees with the article you linked to. Looks like this latest work is an extensive reconfirmation of the view of most of the last decade.