Understanding WASP-12b

TL;DR

This paper investigates the cause of the changing orbital period of WASP-12b, favoring orbital decay due to tidal dissipation over apsidal precession, and models the host star to understand the underlying stellar structure.

Contribution

It analyzes various scenarios for the orbital period change and models the star with MESA to assess its evolutionary state and the likelihood of tidal decay.

Findings

Most likely orbital decay due to tidal dissipation.

Main-sequence stellar models better fit observational constraints.

A subgiant star model is less consistent with data.

Abstract

The orbital period of the hot Jupiter WASP-12b is apparently changing. We study whether this reflects orbital decay due to tidal dissipation in the star, or apsidal precession of a slightly eccentric orbit. In the latter case, a third body or other perturbation would be needed to sustain the eccentricity against tidal dissipation in the planet itself. We have analyzed several such perturbative scenarios, but none is satisfactory. Most likely therefore, the orbit really is decaying. If this is due to a dynamical tide, then WASP-12 should be a subgiant without a convective core as Weinberg et al. (2017) have suggested. We have modeled the star with the MESA code. While no model fits all of the observational constraints, including the luminosity implied by the GAIA DR2 distance, main-sequence models are less discrepant than subgiant ones.