A Homogeneous Catalog of Rossiter-McLaughlin Systems: Distinct $e$-$λ$ Trends in Three Gas-Giant Mass Regimes
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866914608829169664 |
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| author | Wang, Xian-Yu Wang, Songhu Batygin, Konstantin |
| author_facet | Wang, Xian-Yu Wang, Songhu Batygin, Konstantin |
| contents | Stellar obliquity ($λ$) and orbital eccentricity ($e$) trace the dynamical histories of close-in giant planets, but the current observational picture is assembled from heterogeneous analyses that have obscured population-level trends. In this work, we homogeneously refit systems with Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) measurements by performing a joint global fit to spectral energy distributions, transit light curves, mid-transit times, out-of-transit and in-transit radial velocities, yielding self-consistent posterior distributions for the physical and orbital parameters of both stars and planets across 255 systems. Restricting to 145 single-star systems with reliable planet-mass measurements, we uncover pronounced structure in the $e-λ$ plane that depends on planet mass: (i) sub-Saturns ($M_{\rm p} \leq \sim0.3M_{\rm J}$) can be both eccentric and misaligned; (ii) Jupiters ($\sim0.3M_{\rm J}<M_{\rm p} \leq \sim3 M_{\rm J}$) are misaligned only on circular orbits; and (iii) super Jupiters and brown dwarfs ($M_{\rm p}>\sim3M_{\rm J}$) are aligned across the full eccentricity range. A two-dimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov test shows that the joint $(e,λ)$ distributions differ significantly among these three mass regimes. These trends demonstrate that $λ$ depends jointly on eccentricity and planet mass, implying that obliquity alone is not a unique tracer of evolutionary history and underscoring the need for a unified framework for the origins of spin-orbit misalignment. The full catalog from this work is publicly available at https://www.stellarobliquity.com . |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_28719 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A Homogeneous Catalog of Rossiter-McLaughlin Systems: Distinct $e$-$λ$ Trends in Three Gas-Giant Mass Regimes Wang, Xian-Yu Wang, Songhu Batygin, Konstantin Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Stellar obliquity ($λ$) and orbital eccentricity ($e$) trace the dynamical histories of close-in giant planets, but the current observational picture is assembled from heterogeneous analyses that have obscured population-level trends. In this work, we homogeneously refit systems with Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) measurements by performing a joint global fit to spectral energy distributions, transit light curves, mid-transit times, out-of-transit and in-transit radial velocities, yielding self-consistent posterior distributions for the physical and orbital parameters of both stars and planets across 255 systems. Restricting to 145 single-star systems with reliable planet-mass measurements, we uncover pronounced structure in the $e-λ$ plane that depends on planet mass: (i) sub-Saturns ($M_{\rm p} \leq \sim0.3M_{\rm J}$) can be both eccentric and misaligned; (ii) Jupiters ($\sim0.3M_{\rm J}<M_{\rm p} \leq \sim3 M_{\rm J}$) are misaligned only on circular orbits; and (iii) super Jupiters and brown dwarfs ($M_{\rm p}>\sim3M_{\rm J}$) are aligned across the full eccentricity range. A two-dimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov test shows that the joint $(e,λ)$ distributions differ significantly among these three mass regimes. These trends demonstrate that $λ$ depends jointly on eccentricity and planet mass, implying that obliquity alone is not a unique tracer of evolutionary history and underscoring the need for a unified framework for the origins of spin-orbit misalignment. The full catalog from this work is publicly available at https://www.stellarobliquity.com . |
| title | A Homogeneous Catalog of Rossiter-McLaughlin Systems: Distinct $e$-$λ$ Trends in Three Gas-Giant Mass Regimes |
| topic | Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.28719 |