Exoplanetary system WASP-3 : measurement of the projected spin-orbit angle and evidence for stellar activity
Author(s)
Tripathi, Anjali
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Alternative title
Measurement of the projected spin-orbit angle and evidence for stellar activity
Other Contributors
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics.
Advisor
Joshua N. Winn.
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In this thesis, I present new spectroscopic and photometric observations of WASP-3, a transiting extrasolar planetary system. From spectra obtained during two transits, I use the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect in a simplified physical model to determine the projected spin-orbit angle between the planetary orbital axis and the stellar rotation axis, ... degrees. I use the new photometric data to refine the system parameters. Additionally, I present evidence for stellar activity, as the spectra obtained on UT June 19, 2008 reveal an increase in radial velocity to a peak magnitude of 75 m s-1 larger than the expected orbital velocity. Such an anomaly was not observed during a subsequent transit. I find that a good fit to the radial velocity measurements requires omitting the anomalous data and adding a large stellar jitter of 11 m s-1 to the measurement uncertainties. The resulting planetary mass, Mp = ... MJ differs from previously reported measurements which found Mp = 1.76 ... Together, these observations provide evidence for a region of stellar activity on WASP-3, and the observed anomaly suggests that material in this region exhibited a coherent horizontal motion of approximately 10 km s-' across the stellar surface at the limb.
Description
Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-73).
Date issued
2009Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of PhysicsPublisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Physics.