TIC 207109417: a 7.0-hour transit-like signal on a bright K dwarf, excluded by an edge artefact and re-examined — description, light-curve checks, and a frozen prediction for a sector not yet looked at
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: In a hash-registered search of public QLP light curves for short-period transit signals, TIC 207109417 (Tmag 9.96, Teff about 4600 K, R about 0.74 R_sun) showed a peak at P = 0.29171 d (7.0 h) with a search signal-to-noise ratio of 17.8 and a depth of about 330-360 ppm. It was excluded by the pixel stage of the search (chi2/dof = 23.5) because the TESScut cut-out of one sector has zero-valued border pixels that remove the background subtraction (a separate note describes this edge artefact). Recomputed without the artefact the star lies on either side of the pass threshold (2.41 and 2.52 against 2.5), so its verdict is not assessable; no pass and no hint follows from a rule change. We describe the star, the light-curve checks that do not depend on the cut-out (no sign of a period alias at 2P or P/2, no secondary eclipse, no ellipsoidal or rotation signal at the period, no neighbour within 4 magnitudes in 60 arcsec, no TOI or CTOI), and a frozen, locally hashed prediction for Sector 97, the only sector at or above 97 in which the pointing table places the star and which this project has not looked at. The prediction concerns the periodicity only. The data of Sector 97 have not been loaded by this project. A block-shuffle null of 1000 runs gave 0 exceedances of the search peak (FAP 0.0010 for this star, not corrected for the number of stars searched). Nothing here is a detection, a validated planet or a recommendation to observe.
Author: Reckling, Dennis
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225101184