On the long-term tidal evolution of GJ 436b in the presence of a resonant companion

In order to explain the significant orbital eccentricity of the short-period transiting Neptune-mass planet GJ 436b and at the same time satisfy various observational constraints and anomalies, Ribas, Font-Ribera and Beaulieu have proposed the existence of an eccentric low-mass companion planet at the position of the outer 2:1 resonance. The authors demonstrate the viability of their proposal using point-mass three-body integrations, arguing that as long as the system appears to be dynamically stable, the short-term secular variations ought to dominate the long-term dissipative evolution. Here we demonstrate that if one includes tidal dissipation, both orbits circularize after a few times the circularization timescale of the inner planet. We conclude that with or without a nearby companion planet, in or out of the 2:1 resonance, the Q-value of GJ 436b must be near the upper bound estimate for Neptune if the system is as young as 1 Gyr, and an order of magnitude higher if the system is as old as 10 Gyr. We show detail of passage through resonance and conclude that even out of resonance, a companion planet should still be detectable through transit timing variations.