  Some highly irradiated close-in exoplanets orbit stars showing anomalously
low stellar chromospheric emission. We attribute this to absorption by
circumstellar gas replenished by mass loss from ablating planets. Here we
report statistics validating this hypothesis. Among ~3000 nearby, bright, main
sequence stars ~40 show depressed chromospheric emission indicative of
undiscovered mass-losing planets. The Dispersed Matter Planet Project uses high
precision, high cadence radial velocity measurements to detect these planets.
We summarise results for two planetary systems (DMPP-1 and DMPP-3) and fully
present observations revealing a Mp sin i = 0.469 M$_{\rm J}$ planet in a 5.207
d orbit around the $\gamma$-Doradus pulsator HD 11231 (DMPP-2). We have
detected short period planets wherever we have made more than 60 RV
measurements, demonstrating that we have originated a very efficient method for
detecting nearby compact planetary systems. Our shrouded, ablating planetary
systems may be a short-lived phase related to the Neptunian desert: i.e. the
dearth of intermediate-mass planets at short orbital periods. The circumstellar
gas facilitates compositional analysis; allowing empirical exogeology in the
cases of sublimating rocky planets. Dispersed Matter Planet Project discoveries
will be important for establishing the empirical mass-radius-composition
relationship(s) for low mass planets.
