Tidal Dissipation in the System WASP-46

Abstract

The change in the orbital period of the system WASP-46 due to quasi-static and dynamical tidal interactions is investigated. Various dissipation mechanisms are studied. In the case of quasi-static tides, dissipation is assumed to occur due to turbulent viscosity, while in the case of dynamical tides, two limiting cases are considered: the regime of moderately large dissipation and the regime of weak dissipation due to radiative viscosity. The change in the orbital period of WASP-46 is calculated and compared with observations. The regime of moderately large dissipation is shown to describe best the observations.