A three-harmonic test does not reject a fixed variable source in Kepler quarter 9 data for KIC 8462852

We test a necessary condition for one variable source at a fixed position in the blended image of KIC 8462852. At the known 0.88-day period, every flux harmonic must have the same real ratio to each centroid coordinate. We fit three harmonics in Kepler release 25 quarter 9 data. A paired residual-block test includes flux errors and correlations between channels. With a 5-day baseline and 24-sample blocks, the conditional bootstrap tail fraction is 0.801 for raw centroids and 0.648 after archived pointing subtraction. The primary test does not reject the model. This null result does not confirm one source or locate it. The method assumes a stable aperture and stationary residual noise. The frequency was chosen from the same quarter in prior campaign work. No independent instrument data are tested. We find no new planet or periodic signal. The bundle includes original code, aggregate results, figures, source hashes and a separate-scratch retrieval script.

Kepler · KIC 8462852 · variability-induced motion · harmonics · source confusion · null result