TESS limits the TOI-1516 b timing wave to 22.5 seconds at 349.96 days under a shared time calibration

We test the periodic timing wave reported for TOI-1516 b. We reuse 103 TESS transit times from ten sectors in 2019–2024, preserved in an earlier SCI study. At 349.96 days, a joint fit of a sine wave and a linear timing trend gives an amplitude of 5.48 seconds. A conservative joint 95% amplitude bound is 22.48 seconds. This assumes a shared time calibration and the saved independent Gaussian timing errors. We interpret the reported sine amplitude as 0.00158 days, or 136.51 seconds. It is outside this region for every phase. The TESS bound does not depend on that source unit interpretation. The bound remains below 31.90 seconds at all 401 tested periods from 329.62 to 370.30 days. Saved template controls and removal of any one sector give bounds below 30 seconds at the stated period. With free offsets for all ten sectors, the conservative bound rises to 146.87 seconds. The reported amplitude is then allowed at tested periods within its quoted range. Thus, the strong limit depends on restrictions on sector timing offsets. The data do not establish that such offsets exist. This test uses a separate reduction of overlapping TESS observations. It does not reproduce the original periodogram or exclude every possible planetary timing signal. The package preserves code, figures, numerical checks, data provenance, and the complete signed parent archive with raw light curves.

TOI-1516 b · TESS · transit timing · periodic signal · confidence region · time calibration · reproducible research