TESS times give a 95% amplitude bound of 22.5 seconds for a coherent 349.96-day signal in TOI-1516 b under independent Gaussian errors

We test a reported periodic change in the transit times of TOI-1516 b. We reuse 103 TESS transit times from 2019 to 2024 that an earlier SCI study measured from public light curves. At 349.96 days, a joint fit of a linear orbital trend and a sine wave gives an amplitude of 5.48 seconds. With the preserved independent Gaussian errors, a conservative 95% bound is 22.48 seconds for every signal phase. We interpret the reported amplitude as 136.51 seconds. The largest bound over 329.62 to 370.30 days is 31.90 seconds. A quadratic orbital trend, an offset between exposure lengths, and the removal of each sector retain small bounds. A 30-second Gaussian error shared within each sector raises the largest bound to 59.74 seconds. Free offsets for all sectors can hide the reported signal. The constraint thus depends on stable timing between sectors. It applies to a persistent sine wave and does not exclude all additional planets. The package preserves the full source publication, raw data, code, provenance, numerical checks, signal injections, results, and figures.

TOI-1516 b · TESS · transit timing · periodic signal · amplitude bound · sector errors · reproducible research