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Related papers: Stellar obliquities in exoplanetary systems

200 papers

A planet's axial tilt ("obliquity") substantially affects its atmosphere and habitability. It is thus essential to comprehend the various mechanisms that can excite planetary obliquities, particularly at the primordial stage. Here, we…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-10-31 Sidhant Kumar Suar , Sarah C. Millholland

The rotation axis of the Sun is misaligned from the mean angular momentum plane of the Solar system by about 6 degrees. This obliquity significantly exceeds the ~1-2 degree distribution of inclinations among the planetary orbits and…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2019-07-10 Christopher Spalding

Stellar spin-orbit misalignments (obliquities) in hot Jupiter systems have been extensively probed. Such obliquities may reveal clues about hot Jupiter dynamical histories. Common explanations for generating obliquities include…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-08-01 Kassandra R. Anderson , Dong Lai

Context. True spin-orbit obliquities {\Psi} offer valuable insights into the evolutionary history of exoplanetary systems. Previous studies have suggested that exoplanets tend to occupy either aligned or perpendicular orbits. However,…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2026-01-21 Alessandro Matteo Rossi , Monica Rainer , Francesco Borsa , Stefano Facchini

Misalignments between planetary orbits and the equatorial planes of their host stars are clues about the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Earlier work found evidence for a peak near $90^\circ$ in the distribution of stellar…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-06-14 Jared Siegel , Joshua Winn , Simon Albrecht

We place lower limits on the obliquities between debris disks and their host stars for 31 systems by comparing their disk and stellar inclinations. While previous studies did not find evidence for misalignment, we identify 6 systems with…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-04-19 Spencer A. Hurt , Meredith A. MacGregor

The angle between the spin axis of the host star and the orbit of its planets (i.e., the stellar obliquity) is precious information about the formation and evolution of exoplanetary systems. Measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-12 Roberto Sanchis-Ojeda , Josh N. Winn , Daniel C. Fabrycky

Measurements of the obliquities in exoplanet systems have revealed some remarkable architectures, some of which are very different from the Solar System. Nearly 200 obliquity measurements have been obtained through observations of the…

The stellar obliquity of a planetary system is often used to help constrain the system's formation and evolution. One of the mechanisms to reorient the stellar spin involves a secular resonance crossing due to the dissipation of the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-09-16 Yubo Su , Dong Lai

The distribution of spin-orbit angles for systems with wide-separation, tidally detached exoplanets offers a unique constraint on the prevalence of dynamically violent planetary evolution histories. Tidally detached planets provide a…

The angle between the rotation and orbital axes of stars in binary systems -- the obliquity -- is an important indicator of how these systems form and evolve but few such measurements exist. We combine the sample of astrometric orbital…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2023-02-08 Warrick H. Ball , Amaury H. M. J. Triaud , Emily Hatt , Martin B. Nielsen , William J. Chaplin

When a planet passes in front of a starspot during a transit of its host star, it causes a small upward blip in the light curve. Modelling the transit with the starspot allows the size, brightness and position of the spot to be measured. If…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2016-12-07 John Southworth , Luigi Mancini

Transiting giant planets provide a natural opportunity to examine stellar obliquities, which offer clues about the origin and dynamical histories of close-in planets. Hot Jupiters orbiting Sun-like stars show a tendency for obliquity…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-10-31 Marvin Morgan , Brendan P. Bowler , Quang H. Tran , Erik Petigura , Vighnesh Nagpal , Sarah Blunt

Detailed observational characterization of transiting exoplanet systems has revealed that the spin-axes of massive (M > ~1.2 solar masses) stars often exhibit substantial misalignments with respect to the orbits of the planets they host.…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-09-30 Christopher Spalding , Konstantin Batygin

Observational constraints on planet spin-axis has recently become possible, and revealed a system that favors a large spin-axis misalignment, a low stellar spin-orbit misalignment and a high eccentricity. To explain the origin of such…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2021-07-07 Gongjie Li

In planetary systems with sufficiently small inter-planet spacing, close encounters can lead to planetary collisions/mergers or ejections. We study the spin property of the merger products of two giant planets in a statistical manner using…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-07-29 Jiaru Li , Dong Lai

Stellar obliquities, or spin-orbit angles, prevalent in exoplanet systems, can impose important constraints on their formation and evolution histories. Recent studies suggest that primordial misalignments between protoplanetary disks and…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-08-07 Tao Fu , Yue Wang , Weiduo Hu

Astrophysical fluid bodies that orbit close to one another induce tidal distortions and flows that are subject to dissipative processes. The spin and orbital motions undergo a coupled evolution over astronomical timescales, which is…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-19 Gordon I. Ogilvie

Stellar obliquity serves as a key diagnostic for tracing the dynamical evolution of bound systems-from giant planets and brown dwarfs to stellar binaries-revealing whether these diverse populations share analogous histories. Here, we report…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2026-04-13 Tianjun Gan , Alexandrine L'Heureux , Étienne Artigau , Charles Cadieux , René Doyon , Neil J. Cook , Shude Mao

A significant fraction of hot Jupiters have orbital axes misaligned with their host stars' spin axes. The large stellar obliquities of these giants have long been considered potential signatures of high-eccentricity migration, which is…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-03-06 Brandon Thomas Radzom , Jiayin Dong , Malena Rice , Xian-Yu Wang , Kyle Hixenbaugh , George Zhou , Chelsea X. Huang , Songhu Wang