Loading...
Please wait, while we are loading the content...
ON THE SPIN-ORBIT MISALIGNMENT OF THE XO-3 EXOPLANETARY SYSTEM
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Author | Winn, Joshua N. Johnson, John Asher Fabrycky, Daniel Howard, Andrew Marcy, Geoffrey W. Narita, Norio Crossfield, Ian J. Suto, Yasushi Turner, Edwin L. Esquerdo, Gil Holman, Matthew J. |
| Copyright Year | 2009 |
| Description | Journal: The Astrophysical Journal We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of the 2009 February 2 transit of the exoplanet XO-3b. The new data show that the planetary orbital axis and stellar rotation axis are misaligned, as reported earlier by Hébrard and coworkers. We find the angle between the sky projections of the two axes to be 37.3 ± 3.7 deg, as compared to the previously reported value of 70 ± 15 deg. The significance of this discrepancy is unclear because there are indications of systematic effects. XO-3b is the first exoplanet known to have a highly inclined orbit relative to the equatorial plane of its parent star, and as such it may fulfill the predictions of some scenarios for the migration of massive planets into close-in orbits. We revisit the statistical analysis of spin-orbit alignment in hot-Jupiter systems. Assuming the stellar obliquities to be drawn from a single Rayleigh distribution, we find the mode of the distribution to be $13^{+5} _{–2}$ deg. However, it remains the case that a model representing two different migration channels—in which some planets are drawn from a perfectly aligned distribution and the rest are drawn from an isotropic distribution—is favored over a single Rayleigh distribution. |
| Related Links | http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/700/1/302/pdf |
| Ending Page | 308 |
| Page Count | 7 |
| Starting Page | 302 |
| ISSN | 0004637X |
| DOI | 10.1088/0004-637x/700/1/302 |
| Journal | The Astrophysical Journal |
| Issue Number | 1 |
| Volume Number | 700 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing |
| Publisher Date | 2009-07-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Journal: The Astrophysical Journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Spin Orbit |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
| Subject | Astronomy and Astrophysics Space and Planetary Science |
