A Tendency Toward Alignment in Single-star Warm-Jupiter Systems

The distribution of spin–orbit angles for systems with wide-separation, tidally detached exoplanets offers a unique constraint on the prevalence of dynamically violent planetary evolution histories. Tidally detached planets provide a relatively unbiased view of the primordial stellar obliquity distr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astronomical journal 2022-09, Vol.164 (3), p.104
Main Authors: Rice, Malena, Wang, Songhu, Wang, Xian-Yu, Stefánsson, Guđmundur, Isaacson, Howard, Howard, Andrew W., Logsdon, Sarah E., Schweiker, Heidi, Dai, Fei, Brinkman, Casey, Giacalone, Steven, Holcomb, Rae
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accretion disks
Astronomy
Detaching
Dispersal
Exoplanet astronomy
Exoplanet dynamics
Exoplanet evolution
Exoplanet systems
Exoplanets
Extrasolar planets
Gas giant planets
Hot Jupiters
Jupiter
Obliquity
Planet formation
Planetary alignment
Planetary dynamics
Planetary evolution
Planetary theory
Protoplanetary disks
Spectrographs
Star-planet interactions
Stellar systems
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Summary:The distribution of spin–orbit angles for systems with wide-separation, tidally detached exoplanets offers a unique constraint on the prevalence of dynamically violent planetary evolution histories. Tidally detached planets provide a relatively unbiased view of the primordial stellar obliquity distribution, as they cannot tidally realign within the system lifetime. We present the third result from our Stellar Obliquities in Long-period Exoplanet Systems (SOLES) survey: a measurement of the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect across two transits of the tidally detached warm Jupiter TOI-1478 b with the WIYN/NEID and Keck/HIRES spectrographs, revealing a sky-projected spin–orbit angle λ = 6.2 − 5.5 + 5.9 ° . Combining this new measurement with the full set of archival obliquity measurements, including two previous constraints from the SOLES survey, we demonstrate that, in single-star systems, tidally detached warm Jupiters are preferentially more aligned than closer-orbiting hot Jupiters. This finding has two key implications: (1) planets in single-star systems tend to form within aligned protoplanetary disks, and (2) warm Jupiters form more quiescently than hot Jupiters, which, in single-star systems, are likely perturbed into a misaligned state through planet–planet interactions in the post-disk-dispersal phase. We also find that lower-mass Saturns span a wide range of spin–orbit angles, suggesting a prevalence of planet–planet scattering and/or secular mechanisms in these systems.
ISSN:0004-6256
1538-3881
DOI:10.3847/1538-3881/ac8153