The Rossiter-McLaughlin Effect in Exoplanet Research
Abstract
The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect occurs during a planet's transit. It provides the main means of measuring the sky-projected spin-orbit angle between a planet's orbital plane and its host star's equatorial plane. Observing the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect is now a near routine procedure. It is an important element in the orbital characterization of transiting exoplanets. Measurements of the spin-orbit angle have revealed a surprising diversity, far from the placid, Kantian, and Laplacian ideals, whereby planets form, and remain, on orbital planes coincident with their star's equator. This chapter will review a short history of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, how it is modeled, and will summarize the current state of the field before describing other uses for a spectroscopic transit and alternative methods of measuring the spin-orbit angle.
- Publication:
-
Handbook of Exoplanets
- Pub Date:
- 2018
- DOI:
- 10.1007/978-3-319-55333-7_2
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1709.06376
- Bibcode:
- 2018haex.bookE...2T
- Keywords:
-
- Physics;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Review to appear as a chapter in the "Handbook of Exoplanets", ed. H. Deeg &