AU Mic b is the Youngest Planet to have a Spin-Orbit Alignment Measurement

TL;DR

This study measures the sky-projected spin-orbit angle of AU Mic b, a very young Neptune-sized exoplanet, providing insights into planetary formation and migration in a system with a debris disk, despite observational challenges.

Contribution

First measurement of the spin-orbit angle for a very young exoplanet, AU Mic b, contributing valuable data to understanding early planetary system dynamics.

Findings

Sky-projected spin-orbit angle is approximately 47 degrees, with large uncertainty.

Measurement is consistent with both aligned and misaligned orbits.

Results support the importance of early system characterization despite observational limitations.

Abstract

We report measurements of the sky-projected spin-orbit angle for AU\,Mic\,b, a Neptune-size planet orbiting a very young ($\sim20$\,Myr) nearby pre-main sequence M dwarf star which also hosts a bright, edge-on, debris disk. The planet was recently discovered from preliminary analysis of radial velocity observations and confirmed to be transiting its host star from photometric data from the NASA's \textit{TESS} mission. We obtained radial velocity measurements of AU\,Mic over the course of two partially observable transits and one full transit of planet b from high-resolution spectroscopic observations made with the {\textsc{Minerva}}-Australis telescope array. Only a marginal detection of the Rossiter--McLaughlin effect signal was obtained from the radial velocities, in part due to AU Mic being an extremely active star and the lack of full transit coverage plus sufficient out-of-transit baseline. As such, a precise determination of the obliquity for AU\,Mic\,b is not possible in this study and we find a sky-projected spin-orbit angle of $\lambda = 47{^{+26}_{-54}}^{\circ}$. This result is consistent with both the planet's orbit being aligned or highly misaligned with the spin-axis of its host star. Our measurement independently agrees with, but is far less precise than observations carried out on other instruments around the same time that measure a low obliquity orbit for the planet. AU\,Mic is the youngest exoplanetary system for which the projected spin-orbit angle has been measured, making it a key data point in the study of the formation and migration of exoplanets -- particularly given that the system is also host to a bright debris disk.