ROSSITER-MCLAUGHLIN OBSERVATIONS OF 55 Cnc e

Journal Article · Wed Sep 10 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/792/2/L31· OSTI ID:22365082

López-Morales, Mercedes; Rodler, Florian; Dumusque, Xavier; Buchhave, Lars A.; Latham, David W. ^[1]; Harutyunyan, Avet ^[2]; Hoyer, Sergio; Alonso, Roi ^[3]; Gillon, Michaël ^[4]; Kaib, Nathan A. ^[5]; Lovis, Christophe; Pepe, Francesco; Queloz, Didier; Ségransan, Damien; Udry, Stéphane ^[6]; Raymond, Sean N. ^[7]

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1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 01238 (United States)
2. Fundación Galileo Galilei-INAF, Rambla José Ana Fernandez Pérez, E-738712 Breña Baja, Tenerife (Spain)
3. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain)
4. Institut d'Astrophysique et Géophysique, Université de Liège, Allée du 6 Août 17, B-4000 Liège (Belgium)
5. Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, 2131 Tech Drive, Evanston, IL 60208 (United States)
6. Observatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève, Chemin des Maillettes 51, Sauverny, CH-1290 (Switzerland)
7. Université de Bordeaux, LAB, UMR 5804, BP F-33270 Floirac (France)

We present Rossiter-McLaughlin observations of the transiting super-Earth 55 Cnc e collected during six transit events between 2012 January and 2013 November with HARPS and HARPS-N. We detect no radial velocity signal above 35 cm s{sup –1} (3σ) and confine the stellar v sin i {sub *} to 0.2 ± 0.5 km s{sup –1}. The star appears to be a very slow rotator, producing a very low amplitude Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. Given such a low amplitude, the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect of 55 Cnc e is undetected in our data, and any spin-orbit angle of the system remains possible. We also performed Doppler tomography and reach a similar conclusion. Our results offer a glimpse of the capacity of future instrumentation to study low amplitude Rossiter-McLaughlin effects produced by super-Earths.

• OSTI ID: 22365082
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 792, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
AMPLITUDES
ASTROPHYSICS
ORBITS
PLANETS
RADIAL VELOCITY
SATELLITES
SIGNALS
SPIN
STARS