The Stellar Obliquity and the Long-period planet in the HAT-P-17 Exoplanetary System

TL;DR

This study measures the stellar obliquity of the HAT-P-17 system using the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, revealing insights into planet formation, migration, and the system's orbital dynamics, with implications for theories of planetary system evolution.

Contribution

First measurement of the projected obliquity of HAT-P-17's inner planet using advanced modeling of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, accounting for convective blueshift and other stellar effects.

Findings

Projected obliquity =19b15 degrees, consistent with aligned systems.

Outer planet's orbital period constrained to 10-36 years, less precise than previous estimates.

Results support the trend of aligned spins and orbits in cool star systems due to tidal interactions.

Abstract

We present the measured projected obliquity -- the sky-projected angle between the stellar spin axis and orbital angular momentum -- of the inner planet of the HAT-P-17 multi-planet system. We measure the sky-projected obliquity of the star to be \lambda=19+/-15 degrees by modeling the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect in Keck/HIRES radial velocities (RVs). The anomalous RV time series shows an asymmetry relative to the midtransit time, ordinarily suggesting a nonzero obliquity -- but in this case at least part of the asymmetry may be due to the convective blueshift, increasing the uncertainty in the determination of \lambda. We employ the semi-analytical approach of Hirano et al. (2011) that includes the effects of macroturbulence, instrumental broadening, and convective blueshift to accurately model the anomaly in the net RV caused by the planet eclipsing part of the rotating star. Obliquity measurements are an important tool for testing theories of planet formation and migration. To date, the measured obliquities of ~50 Jovian planets span the full range, from prograde to retrograde, with planets orbiting cool stars preferentially showing alignment of stellar spins and planetary orbits. Our results are consistent with this pattern emerging from tidal interactions in the convective envelopes of cool stars and close-in planets. In addition, our 1.8 years of new RVs for this system show that the orbit of the outer planet is more poorly constrained than previously thought, with an orbital period now in the range of 10-36 years.