Exocomets. A Spectroscopic Survey

We detected non-photospheric absorptions towards 50% of the sample, thus attributing a circumstellar origin to half of the detections (i.e. 26% of the sample). Hot circumstellar gas was detected in the metallic lines inspected via narrow stable absorptions and/or variable blue- and red-shifted absorption events. Such variable events were found in 18 stars in the CaII and/or NaI lines; six of them are reported in the context of this work for the first time.

In some cases, the variations we report in the CaII K line are similar to those observed in beta^L Pic. While we do not find a significant trend in the age or location of the stars, we do find that the probability of finding CS gas in stars with larger vsini is higher. We also find a weak trend with the presence of near-infrared excess and with anomalous (lambda Boo-like) abundances, but this would require confirmation by expanding the sample.