On the Spin-Orbit Misalignment of the XO-3 Exoplanetary System

TL;DR

This paper reports new observations confirming that the XO-3b exoplanet's orbit is highly inclined relative to its star's equator, supporting theories of complex planetary migration mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides refined measurements of the spin-orbit angle for XO-3b and revisits statistical models of planetary migration channels.

Findings

XO-3b has a sky-projected spin-orbit angle of 37.3 +/- 3.7 degrees.

The statistical analysis favors a two-channel migration model over a single distribution.

The mode of stellar obliquities in hot-Jupiter systems is around 13 degrees.

Abstract

We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of the 2009 Feb. 2 transit of the exoplanet XO-3b. The new data show that the planetary orbital axis and stellar rotation axis are misaligned, as reported earlier by Hebrard and coworkers. We find the angle between the sky projections of the two axes to be 37.3 +/- 3.7 deg, as compared to the previously reported value of 70 +/- 15 deg. The significance of this discrepancy is unclear because there are indications of systematic effects. XO-3b is the first exoplanet known to have a highly inclined orbit relative to the equatorial plane of its parent star, and as such it may fulfill the predictions of some scenarios for the migration of massive planets into close-in orbits. We revisit the statistical analysis of spin-orbit alignment in hot-Jupiter systems. Assuming the stellar obliquities to be drawn from a single Rayleigh distribution, we find the mode of the distribution to be 13^{+5}_{-2} deg. However, it remains the case that a model representing two different migration channels--in which some planets are drawn from a perfectly-aligned distribution and the rest are drawn from an isotropic distribution--is favored over a single Rayleigh distribution.