Planet-Star Interactions with Precise Transit Timing. I. The Refined Orbital Decay Rate for WASP-12 b and Initial Constraints for HAT-P-23 b, KELT-1 b, KELT-16 b, WASP-33 b and WASP-103 b

Theoretical calculations and some indirect observations show that massive exoplanets on tight orbits must decay due to tidal dissipation within their host stars. This orbital evolution could be observationally accessible through precise transit timing over a course of decades. The rate of planetary in-spiraling may not only help us to understand some aspects of evolution of planetary systems, but also can be used as a probe of the stellar internal structure. In this paper we present results of transit timing campaigns organized for a carefully selected sample of the Northern hemisphere hot Jupiter-like planets which were found to be the best candidates for detecting planet-star tidal interactions. Among them, there is the WASP-12 system which is the best candidate for possessing an in-falling giant exoplanet. Our new observations support the scenario of orbital decay of WASP-12 b and allow us to refine its rate. The derived tidal quality parameter of the host star Q'*=(1.82±0.32)×105 is in agreement with theoretical predictions for subgiant stars. For the remaining systems - HAT-P-23, KELT-1, KELT-16, WASP-33, and WASP-103 - our transit timing data reveal no deviations from the constant-period models, hence constraints on the individual rates of orbital decay were placed. The tidal quality parameters of host stars in at least four systems - HAT-P-23, KELT-1, WASP-33, and WASP-103 - were found to be greater than the value reported for WASP-12. This is in line with the finding that those hosts are main sequence stars, for which efficiency of tidal dissipation is predicted to be relatively weak.