Orbit and Mass
HAT-P-1b is located in a very close orbit to its star, taking only 4.47 days to complete. It therefore falls into the category of hot Jupiters. At only 8.27 million kilometers from the star, tidal forces would circularise the orbit unless another perturbing body exists in the system. At the present time, the existing measurements are not sufficient to determine the orbital eccentricity, so a perfectly circular orbit has been assumed by the discoverers. However, the eccentricity of the planet was calculated to be no greater than 0.067.
In order to determine the mass of the planet, measurements of the star's radial velocity variations were made by the N2K Consortium. This was done by observing the Doppler shift in the star's spectrum. Combined with the known inclination of the orbit as determined by the transit observations, this revealed the mass of the planet to be 0.53±0.04 times that of Jupiter.
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