A PROGRADE, LOW-INCLINATION ORBIT FOR THE VERY HOT JUPITER WASP-3b

2010/04/11 by Anjali Tripathi, Joshua N. Winn, John Asher Johnson +9
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Hot Jupiter #Moonlight #Occultation #Orbit (dynamics) #Orbital decay #Orbital elements #Orbital inclination #Orbital plane #Planet #Stellar rotation #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.EP #astro-ph.SR

paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/715/1/421

published as Astrophys.J. 715 (2010) 421-428. · 23 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, Replacement includes revised citations

arxiv created 2010/04/11 · openalex publication_date 2010/04/28 · arxiv updated 2010/04/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We present new spectroscopic and photometric observations of the transiting exoplanetary system WASP-3. Spectra obtained during two separate transits exhibit the Rossiter–McLaughlin (RM) effect and allow us to estimate the sky-projected angle between the planetary orbital axis and the stellar rotation axis, λ = 3.3 +2.5 −4.4 deg. This alignment between the axes suggests that WASP-3b has a low orbital inclination relative to the equatorial plane of its parent star. During our first night of spectroscopic measurements, we observed an unexpected redshift briefly exceeding the expected sum of the orbital and RM velocities by 140 m s −1 . This anomaly could represent the occultation of material erupting from the stellar photosphere, although it is more likely to be an artifact caused by moonlight scattered into the spectrograph.

Citations

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