Physical Heliacal Visibility Phase 4 Jones MYSTIC V1 Invalidation Checkpoint

Date: 2026-07-31

Status: v1 pilot, threshold, and holdout evidence invalidated before runtime admission; corrected v2 replacement evidence validated

Finding

The libRadtran 2.0.6 source and AERO_FILES example establish that an aerosol_file explicit property file owns the layer beginning at its listed altitude and extending to the next higher boundary. The uppermost row is a top marker; its property file is ignored.

The v1 writer instead listed each physical file at the layer's upper boundary. That shifted every physical layer upward and placed the final one above the intended 20 km profile top. Because the v1 builder and validator implemented the same mistaken serialization, checksums, exact repeats, Monte Carlo convergence, and sealed holdouts could all pass without testing the governing source rule.

Disposition

• The v1 external artifacts remain reproducible historical records.
• Their numerical results are not valid for scientific or runtime admission.
• No engine code, public API, runtime model, or production data pack consumed the v1 artifacts.
• The compact JSON invalidation checkpoint preserves every affected v1 specification, tool, checkpoint, manifest, and commit receipt.
• V2 uses a top marker, a null 20-120 km gap, and physical files listed at their inclusive lower boundaries.
• V2 uses fresh holdout geometries and seed 271828183; no v1 holdout value is reused as an admission expectation.

Bound Evidence

The machine-readable receipt is:

tests/artifacts/visibility_reference_lab/phase4_jones_mystic_v1_invalidation_checkpoint_2026-07-31.json

It is 4,085 bytes with SHA-256 083a267b527ceaf129416784ea2a088bbbde4840006469d7f1c4710b30588b2b. It binds libRadtran source archive SHA-256 64930cc40b6e4a37aa220520974d330fc1563796f466a649b2238131f2d69840, uvspec_lex.l SHA-256 174755190e50ecc3099c80a29cb71627c0a33a5e2009d1869c23140095658d89, and the AERO_FILES example SHA-256 5b97de8f32828f44c0a568a4565bd94b9272dbe7524764b205a1e896309bb0ad.

Replacement Gate

The replacement pilot model is jones_paranal_mystic_550nm_pilot_v2. Its corrected pilot, frozen threshold evaluation, fresh sealed holdouts, and independent holdout validation all pass. At this checkpoint the next unresolved gate was the Jones 2,000 m lower model boundary versus the 2,640 m observer altitude. That gate was subsequently closed by the Jones MYSTIC lower-boundary checkpoint. No spectral or runtime model is admitted by either correction receipt.