The retrograde orbit of the HAT-P-6b exoplanet

Details The retrograde orbit of the HAT-P-6b exoplanet The retrograde orbit of the HAT-P-6b exoplanet

2011-01-26

arxiv.org/abs/1101.5009v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&A Letters

Scientific paper

We observed with the SOPHIE spectrograph (OHP, France) the transit of the HAT-P-6b exoplanet across its host star. The resulting stellar radial velocities display the Rossiter-McLaughlin anomaly and reveal a retrograde orbit: the planetary orbital spin and the stellar rotational spin point towards approximately opposite directions. A fit to the anomaly measures a sky-projected angle lambda = 166 +/- 10 degrees between these two spin axes. All seven known retrograde planets are hot jupiters with masses M_p < 3 M_Jup. About two thirds of the planets in this mass range however are prograde and aligned (lambda ~ 0). By contrast, most of the more massive planets (M_p > 4 M_Jup) are prograde but misaligned. Different mechanisms may therefore be responsible for planetary obliquities above and below ~3.5 M_Jup.

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