An 18-Day Planet Candidate around the Nearby Red Dwarf L 279-94 (TIC 100796276)

I report a planet candidate around the nearby red dwarf L 279-94 (TIC 100796276), found in a search of public TESS data. Every 18.152 days the star dims by 0.32% for 2.4 hours. TESS recorded six full dips, or transits, between 2020 and 2026; I predicted the times of two of them before looking at the data. If the transiting object orbits L 279-94, its radius is 2.5 Earth radii. The TESS images show that the dip comes from within about 5 arcseconds of the star. A statistical comparison weighs a planet orbiting L 279-94 against other possible sources of the dip, such as eclipsing stars or a planet around another star; instrument effects are checked separately. This comparison clears the usual bar for a statistically validated planet only when Gaia data are used to limit hidden companion stars, and even then not with every way of treating the data. A second analysis does not clear it. A planet around a hidden companion star is still possible, so I call the signal a planet candidate. No sharp, high-resolution image of the star is in the archives I searched; such an image would rule out many of these companions.