This catalog has been frozen on 5 April 2016.
John Southworth's TEPCat Catalog serves as an up-to-date alternative: http://www.astro.keele.ac.uk/jkt/tepcat.
92 planets with published measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect — 36 of which show substantial misalignments in at least one publication
| Planet [EPE link] | Spin-orbit alignment λ ≡ -β | Error | ADS references |
7 planets whose spin-orbit alignments were not obtained via the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect — 2 of which show substantial misalignments in at least one publication
| Fomalhaut b[9] | 1° | ±3.3° | Le Bouquin+ (2009) |
| Kepler-13Ab[10],[11],[12] | 23° / 58.6° | ±4° / ±2° | Barnes+ (2011), Johnson+ (2014) |
| Kepler-17b[13] | < 15° | Désert+ (2011) | |
| KOI-368.01 [10] | 10° | ±2° | Ahlers+ (2014) |
| KOI-2138.01 [10] | 1° | ±13° | Barnes+ (2015) |
| PTFO 8-8695b [10] | 73.1° | ±0.5° | Barnes+ (2013) |
| Venus[14] | 3.86° | (adopted, not measured) | Molaro+ (2013) |
[1] The study of Czesla+ (2012) provides the
first measurement ever of a chromospheric Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, showing that the chromosphere of CoRoT-2 has a scale of about 105 km.
[2] Nutzman+ (2012) were the first to use star
spots for the measurement of the spin-orbit misalignment. Advantageously, their method can be used to derive the true geometry and not only the
sky-projection.
[3] Benomar+ (2014) derived their values using archival data from other studies and combining them with asteroseismology and additional light curve analyses. This allowed them to determine the true spin-orbit misalignments of Hat-P-7b (ψ≈120°) and Kepler-25c (ψ=26.9°, +7.0°, -9.2°). For Hat-P-7b, a similar study has been performed by Lund+ (2014). Masuda (2015) derived values using constraints from gravity darkening, asteroseismology, and the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect.
[4] A set of two solutions for the stellar obliquity of Hat-P-11 is given in Sanchis-Ojeda+ (2011).
[5] The Narita+ (2009) results formally supersede those by Narita+ (2008).
[6] Collier Cameron+ (2010) provide six values, derived for three different limb darkening coefficients for observations at two epochs. I here include the one with the smallest error, but the other measurements are very similar.
[7] Planet Kepler-16(AB)b orbits a stellar binary. The measurements of Winn+ (2011) were taken during the transit of
the secondary star (B) in front of the primary star (A).
[8] Further constraints on the obliquities of WASP-1b and WASP-2b, some of which contradict the conclusions from the authors given above, are given by
Albrecht+ (2011).
[9] The position angle of the star Fomalhaut was measured to be 65° (±3°), while the disk angle was
observed to be 156° (±0.3°). Thus, the stellar rotation axis is almost perfectly perpendicular to
the disk plane. So far, no planet of this system shows transits.
[10] Ahlers+ (2014), Barnes+ (2013), Barnes+ (2014), and Barnes+ (2015) obtained their values via gravity darkening in the transit light curve.
[11] Johnson+ (2014) obtained their values via Doppler tomography.
[12] Masuda (2015) derived additional constraints on the true spin-orbit angle ψ using constraints from gravity darkening, asteroseismology, and the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect.
[13] Désert+ (2011) determined the maximum
stellar obliquity from observations of the stellar spots occasionally being occulted by the planet.
[14] While the Holt-Rossiter-McLaughlin (HRM) effect during the transit of Venus in front of the Sun on June 6, 2012 has been observed, it has not been determined by those observations.
The sky-projected spin-orbit misalignment had been known before.
Angles are given in terms of λ as defined in Ohta+ (2005). It is sometimes confused with the angle β ≡ -λ, as defined by Hosokawa (1953) and
Giménez+ (2006). Howsoever,
in a physical sense the definition of the algebraic sign is arbitrary. Among the systems listed above, those with substantial misalignments (> π/8 = 22.5°) are marked in bold,
but pay attention to the errors!
The analysis of the HRM effect of WASP-23b, given by Triaud+ (2011),
is not listed above since their data yields ambiguous results about the sky-projected spin-orbit misalignment.
Helpful résumés of spin-orbit measurements and the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect are given by
Fabrycky & Winn (2009)
and
Pont+ (2009). For a thorough description of the in-transit RV variation, the
convective blueshift needs to be considered (Shporer and Brown 2011). An alternatve
approach to measure the sky-projected spin-orbit misalignment is the inhomogeneous distribution of effective temperature on the star, induced by gravitational
darkening on the star (Szabó+ 2011).
This site makes intense use of the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
and the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS). I thank Jean Schneider, Olivier Absil, Elaine Simpson, John Johnson,
Yasushi Suto, Joshua Winn, Michael Perryman, Alexis Smith, George Zhou, John Southworth, Brett Addison, and Ants Wreathall for their helpful comments.
Questions, remarks and corrections are much appreciated. If you use this website for your publication, it would be kind to note "This study has made use of René Heller's Holt-Rossiter-McLaughlin Encyclopaedia (www2.mps.mpg.de/homes/heller)."
Download: HRM_encyclopaedia.txt
Lardner, D., 1858, "Hand-Books of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy", Third Course, Blanchard and Lea, Philadelphia, Chp XXVII (as cited by Howell+ 1999)
Holt, J. R., 1893, Astronomy and Astrophysics, XII, "Spectroscopic Determination of Stellar Rotation" [.pdf] (I found this prediction of what should later be known as the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, when I was delving among historical books in the library of the Hamburg Observatory in 2009. So far, this paper is not listed on ADS. For reference, you may want to use this Holt_bibtex.bib citation as we used it in Heller+ 2009.)
Schlesinger, F., 1910, PAllO, 1, 123 [ADS] (measurement of what should later be known as the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, observed 1924)
Rossiter, R. A., 1924, ApJ, 60, 15 [ADS]
McLaughlin, D. B., 1924, ApJ, 60, 22 [ADS]
Struve, O., 1952, The Observatory, 72, 199 [ADS] (on exoplanet detection)