Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-73). / In this thesis, I present new spectroscopic and photometric observations of WASP-3, a transiting extrasolar planetary system. From spectra obtained during two transits, I use the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect in a simplified physical model to determine the projected spin-orbit angle between the planetary orbital axis and the stellar rotation axis, ... degrees. I use the new photometric data to refine the system parameters. Additionally, I present evidence for stellar activity, as the spectra obtained on UT June 19, 2008 reveal an increase in radial velocity to a peak magnitude of 75 m s-1 larger than the expected orbital velocity. Such an anomaly was not observed during a subsequent transit. I find that a good fit to the radial velocity measurements requires omitting the anomalous data and adding a large stellar jitter of 11 m s-1 to the measurement uncertainties. The resulting planetary mass, Mp = ... MJ differs from previously reported measurements which found Mp = 1.76 ... Together, these observations provide evidence for a region of stellar activity on WASP-3, and the observed anomaly suggests that material in this region exhibited a coherent horizontal motion of approximately 10 km s-' across the stellar surface at the limb. / by Anjali Tripathi. / S.B.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/51586 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Tripathi, Anjali |
| Contributors | Joshua N. Winn., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics. |
| Publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | M.I.T. Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 73 leaves, application/pdf |
| Rights | M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 |
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