A Short History of (Orbital) Decay: Roman's Prospects for Detecting Dying Planets

2025/04/21 by Carden, Kylee, Gaudi, B. Scott, Wilson, Robert F. · 2 citations
#Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2504.15277

Abstract

The Roman Space Telescope Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (GBTDS) is expected to detect ~10⁵ transiting planets. Many of these planets will have short orbital periods and are thus susceptible to tidal decay. We use a catalog of simulated transiting planet detections to predict the yield of orbital decay detections in the Roman GBTDS. Assuming a constant stellar tidal dissipation factor, Q^'_*, of 10⁶, we predict ~ 5 - 10 detections. We additionally consider an empirical period-dependent parameterization of Q^'_* ∝ P^-3 and find a substantially suppressed yield. We conclude that Roman will provide constraints on the rate of planet engulfment in the Galaxy and probe the physics of tidal dissipation in stars.

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Cited by

• Numerical Non-Adiabatic Tidal Calculations with GYRE-tides: The WASP-12 Test Case
• Orbital decay candidates reconsidered: WASP-4 b is not decaying and Kepler-1658 b is not a planet

Related

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• Transiting Exoplanet Yields for the Roman Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey Predicted from Pixel-Level Simulations
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• In Search of Decay: An Analysis of Transit Times of Hot Jupiters in Main Sequence and Post-Main Sequence Systems
• OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE FOR TIDAL DESTRUCTION OF EXOPLANETS