Motivated by the previously reported high orbital decay rate of the planet WASP-43b, eight newly transit light curves are obtained and presented. Together with other data in literature, we perform a self-consistent timing analysis with data covering a timescale of 1849 epochs. The results give an orbital decay rate dP/dt = -0.02890795\pm 0.00772547 sec/year, which is one order smaller than previous values. This slow decay rate corresponds to a normally assumed theoretical value of stellar tidal dissipation factor. In addition, through the frequency analysis, the transit timing variations presented here are unlikely to be periodic, but could be signals of a slow orbital decay.
@article{arxiv.1511.00768,
title = {The Possible Orbital Decay and Transit Timing Variations of the Planet WASP-43b},
author = {Ing-Guey Jiang and Chien-Yo Lai and Alexander Savushkin and David Mkrtichian and Kirill Antonyuk and Evgeny Griv and He-Feng Hsieh and Li-Chin Yeh},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.00768},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
accepted by AJ; a new orbital decay rate is given; this is a very important finding (commented by the anonymous referee)