Oral Presentation Astronomical Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting including HWWS 2013

RECENTLY DISCOVERED EXOPLANETARY SYSTEM IN SPIN-ORBIT MISALIGNMENT FROM ROSSITER-MCLAUGHLIN MEASUREMENTS (#80)

Brett Addison 1 , Chris Tinney 1 , Duncan Wright 1
  1. University of New South Wales, UNSW Sydney, NSW, Australia

Over 800 extrasolar planets have been discovered over the past two decades at an ever-increasing pace. In addition to finding new planets, a detailed analysis of their structure, composition, and other bulk properties is needed in order to understand the processes involved in their formation, evolution and migration. The Exoplanetary Science group at the University of New South Wales is utilising the new CYCLOPS2 fibre feed in conjunction with the UCLES spectrograph at the Anglo-Australian Telescope to carry out high precision Doppler spectroscopy of candidate transit planet systems. In addition, our team is carrying out measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect in transiting exoplanets. The RM anomaly for transiting planets allows the measurement of the alignment between a planet's orbital plane and its host star's spin axis, known as spin-orbit alignment. This measurement is a crucial component for studying the processes involved in planetary formation and migration. We have carried out measurements of this anomaly for a recently discovered exoplanetary system. Preliminary results indicate that this system is significantly in spin-orbit misalignment by about -90 degrees. I will discuss this exciting result and its potential implications for other planetary systems.