The spin-orbit alignment of the transiting exoplanet WASP-3b from Rossiter-McLaughlin observations

2009/12/31 by E. K. Simpson, D. Pollacco, G. Hébrard +10 · 31 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Exoplanet #Geometry #Line (geometry) #Orbit (dynamics) #Physics #Planet #Planetary system #Radial velocity #Spectral line #Spectrograph #Stars #Stellar rotation #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Transit (satellite) #astro-ph.EP

paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.16576.x

published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Oxford University Press) · 7 pages, 3 figures, published in MNRAS 405 (2010) 1867-1872. Update includes discussion on differential rotaation and correction of typos

openalex publication_date 2010/04/01 · arxiv created 2010/06/28 · arxiv updated 2014/11/20 · openalex created_date 2020/11/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We present an observation of the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect for the planetary system WASP-3. Radial velocity measurements were made during transit using the SOPHIE spectrograph at the 1.93-m telescope at Haute-Provence Observatory. The shape of the effect shows that the sky-projected angle between the stellar rotation axis and planetary orbital axis (λ) is small and consistent with zero within ⁠. WASP-3b joins the ∼two-thirds of planets with measured spin–orbit angles that are well aligned and are thought to have undergone a dynamically gentle migration process such as planet–disc interactions. We find a systematic effect which leads to an anomalously high determination of the projected stellar rotational velocity (v sin i= 19.6+2.2−2.1 km s−1) compared to the value found from spectroscopic line broadening (v sin i= 13.4 ± 1.5 km s−1). This is thought to be caused by a discrepancy in the assumptions made in the extraction and modelling of the data. Using a model developed by Hirano et al. designed to address this issue, we find v sin i to be consistent with the value obtained from spectroscopic broadening measurements (v sin i= 15.7+1.4−1.3 km s−1).

Citations

• Spin-orbit misalignement for the transiting planet HD 80606b
• Updated parameters for the transiting exoplanet WASP-3b using RISE, a new fast camera for the Liverpool Telescope
• The Rossiter‐McLaughlin Effect and Analytic Radial Velocity Curves for Transiting Extrasolar Planetary Systems
• Prospects for the Characterization and Confirmation of Transiting Exoplanets via the Rossiter‐McLaughlin Effect
• Photometric and spectroscopic detection of the primarytransit of the 111-day-period planet HD 80 606 b
• WASP-3b: a strongly irradiated transiting gas-giant planet
• Hubble Space TelescopeACS Multiband Coronagraphic Imaging of the Debris Disk around β Pictoris
• WASP-17b: AN ULTRA-LOW DENSITY PLANET IN A PROBABLE RETROGRADE ORBIT
• Inference from Iterative Simulation Using Multiple Sequences
• Doppler follow-up of OGLE transiting companions in the Galactic bulge
• The SOPHIE search for northern extrasolar planets
• The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect of CoRoT-3b and HD 189733b
• Migrating Planets