Six TESS sectors from 2018 to 2026 do not establish steady period change in WASP-45 b under tested errors

We test whether the reported period decrease of WASP-45 b persists in public TESS data. We measure 34 transit times in six SPOC sectors from 2018 to 2026. The sample includes 21 times from 2023 to 2026. With separate event errors, the fitted steady period change is -38.8 +/- 37.4 milliseconds per year. Its conditional 95 percent interval is -112.1 to +34.5 milliseconds per year. Both zero and the 2025 reported rate of -55.11 milliseconds per year fit the data. The linear clock has a lower BIC than the quadratic clock by 2.45. A test with a 60-second shared Gaussian timing bias in each sector gives -41.9 +/- 80.6 milliseconds per year. Changes in flux, baseline, window, and transit shape retain the same main conclusion. The older central rate of -262.57 milliseconds per year is outside the conditional 95 percent intervals in all tested clock fits. The test of -169.21 milliseconds per year depends on the sector error model. These comparisons test steady rates over the TESS span. They do not give an independent comparison of complete published posteriors or identify a physical cause. We provide the source light curves, their hashes, all selection decisions, transit times, resample draws, code, figures, and signal-recovery checks.

WASP-45 b · TESS · transit times · period change · orbital decay · public data · reproducible research