A rigorous statistical test for the existence of supermetallicity in F, G and K dwarfs

In this paper, the first statistically rigorous test is performed to determine whether there are dwarfs in the solar neighbourhood with Fe/H] > +0.2 dex. The possibility that no such stars exist is rejected with a confidence limit exceeding 99.994 per cent. If the threshold value is raised to +0.38 dex, the corresponding hypothesis is rejected with a confidence limit of 98.5 per cent. It is tentatively found that this upper limit does not depend on the presence or absence of planets orbiting metal-rich stars. In a result that is unchanged from a previous paper, the upper limit for the known metallicities of giants is found to be about 0.2 dex lower than the limit for dwarfs. Stars that might be observed to improve the upper metallicity limit for dwarfs are listed.