Chasing the Tides: Searching for Orbital Decay Signatures in Transit Timing Data and Tidal Models for 20 Hot Jupiters

Kutluay A. C., Baştürk Ö., Barker A. J., Yalçınkaya S., Southworth J., Selam S. O., ...Daha Fazla

PUBLICATIONS OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFIC, cilt.138, sa.2, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)

Özet

In this work, we present a transit timing variation analysis for 20 hot Jupiter systems, which we interpret with theoretical tidal dissipation models. For the majority of the sample, we conclude that a constant orbital period model represents the timing data best. Only WASP-12 b, TrES-1 b and WASP-121 b exhibit a changing orbital period, according to the most up-to-date results. We updated the orbital decay rate of WASP-12 b to P=-29.4 +/- 4.0msyr-1 and the corresponding stellar tidal quality factor to Q & lowast;'=1.72 +/- 0.18 & times;105 . For TrES-1 b, the median quadratic model suggests a period decrease at a rate of -14.9 +/- 0.6 ms yr-1, but the corresponding Q & lowast;'=570 +/- 60 does not agree with the theoretical estimates, which suggest Q & lowast;'similar to 106 due to internal gravity wave dissipation. Lastly, WASP-121 b exhibits orbital growth at a rate of 15.1 +/- 0.8 ms yr-1, and theoretical results support outward migration due to strong inertial wave dissipation.