Related papers: A possible misaligned orbit for the young planet A…
We report the detection of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect for the eccentric, super-Neptune exoplanet HAT-P-11b, based on radial velocity measurements taken with HDS mounted on the Subaru 8.2m telescope, and simultaneous photometry with the…
Despite decades of effort, the mechanisms by which the spin axis of a star and the orbital axes of its planets become misaligned remain elusive. Particularly, it is of great interest whether the large spin-orbit misalignments observed are…
We present evidence that the WASP-14 exoplanetary system has misaligned orbital and stellar-rotational axes, with an angle lambda = 33.1 +/- 7.4 deg between their sky projections. The evidence is based on spectroscopic observations of the…
Via the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, it is possible to measure the sky-projected angle between the stellar spin and a planet's orbital spin. Observed orbital inclinations have been found to range over all possible angles. A tentative…
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 1.93m telescope at Haute-Provence Observatory. The shape…
We recently reported the photometric and spectroscopic detection of the primary transit of the 111-day-period, eccentric extra-solar planet HD80606 b, at Observatoire de Haute-Provence, France (Moutou et al. 2009). The whole egress of the…
We report the measurement of a spin-orbit misalignment for WASP-79b, a recently discovered, bloated transiting hot Jupiter from the WASP survey. Data were obtained using the CYCLOPS2 optical-fiber bundle and its simultaneous calibration…
A planet's orbital alignment places important constraints on how a planet formed and consequently evolved. The dominant formation pathway of ultra-short period planets ($P<1$ day) is particularly mysterious as such planets most likely…
We present spectroscopic measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect for the planet b of Kepler-9 multi-transiting planet system. The resulting sky-projected spin-orbit angle is $\lambda=-13^{\circ} \pm 16^{\circ}$, which favors an…
For transiting planets, the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect allows the measurement of the sky-projected angle beta between the stellar rotation axis and a planet's orbital axis. Using the HARPS spectrograph, we observed the Rossiter-McLaughlin…
Hot-Jupiter planets must form at large separations from their host stars where the temperatures are cool enough for their cores to condense. They then migrate inwards to their current observed orbital separations. Different theories of how…
Observations of exoplanets over the last two decades have revealed a new class of Jupiter-size planets with orbital periods of a few days, the so-called "hot Jupiters". Recent measurements using the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect have shown…
We report the sky-projected spin-orbit angle $\lambda$ for HD 191939 b, the innermost planet in a 6 planet system, using Keck/KPF to detect the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect. Planet b is a sub-Neptune with radius 3.4 $\pm$ 0.8…
AU Mic is an active 24 Myr pre-main sequence M dwarf in the stellar neighborhood (d$=$9.7 pc) with a rotation period of 4.86 days. The two transiting planets orbiting AU Mic, AU Mic b and c, are warm sub-Neptunes on 8.5 and 18.9 day periods…
The abundance of short-period planetary systems with high orbital obliquities relative to the spin of their host stars is often taken as evidence that scattering processes play important roles in the formation and evolution of these…
Contrary to the orthodox picture of planet formation resulting in a neatly ordered Solar System, exoplanet systems exhibit highly diverse orbits: short and long periods, circular and eccentric, well- and misaligned, and even retrograde…
AU Microscopii (AU Mic) is the second closest pre main sequence star, at a distance of 9.79 parsecs and with an age of 22 million years. AU Mic possesses a relatively rare and spatially resolved3 edge-on debris disk extending from about 35…
The discovery of giant planets orbiting close to their host stars was one of the most unexpected results of early exoplanetary science. Astronomers have since found that a significant fraction of these 'Hot Jupiters' move on orbits…
Observing the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect during a planetary transit allows the determination of the angle $\lambda$ between the sky projections of the star's spin axis and the planet's orbital axis. Such observations have revealed a large…
Although close-orbiting, massive exoplanets -- known as hot and warm Jupiters -- are among the most observationally accessible known planets, their formation pathways are still not universally agreed upon. One method to constrain the…