The spin-orbit angle of the transiting hot Jupiter CoRoT-1b

Pont, F.; Endl, M.; Cochran, W. D.; Barnes, S. I.; Sneden, C.; MacQueen, P. J.; Moutou, C.; Aigrain, S.; Alonso, R.; Baglin, A.; Bouchy, F.; Deleuil, M.; Fridlund, M.; Hébrard, G.; Hatzes, A.; Mazeh, T.; Shporer, A.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Volume 402, Issue 1, pp. L1-L5.

Advertised on:
2
2010
Number of authors
17
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
49
Refereed citations
43
Description
We measure the angle between the planetary orbit and the stellar rotation axis in the transiting planetary system CoRoT-1, with new HIRES/Keck and FORS/VLT high-accuracy photometry. The data indicate a highly tilted system, with a projected spin-orbit angle λ = 77° +/- 11°. Systematic uncertainties in the radial velocity data could cause the actual errors to be larger by an unknown amount, and this result needs to be confirmed with further high-accuracy spectroscopic transit measurements. Spin-orbit alignment has now been measured in a dozen extra-solar planetary systems, and several show strong misalignment. The first three misaligned planets were all much more massive than Jupiter and followed eccentric orbits. CoRoT-1, however, is a jovian-mass close-in planet on a circular orbit. If its strong misalignment is confirmed, it would break this pattern. The high occurrence of misaligned systems for several types of planets and orbits favours planet-planet scattering as a mechanism to bring gas giants on very close orbits. Based on observations obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory and the European Southern Observatory. E-mail: fpont [at] astro.ex.ac.uk (fpont[at]astro[dot]ex[dot]ac[dot]uk)