Pre-registration of a confirmatory analysis: eclipses at the conjunctions predicted by near-edge-on Gaia DR4 astrometric orbits

This record time-stamps the analysis plan of a confirmatory search for eclipsing binaries at the conjunction times predicted by near-edge-on astrometric orbits from Gaia Data Release 4. The plan was frozen before the release of Gaia DR4 (2 December 2026) and before any DR4 orbit was read. It fixes in advance the samples, the procedure, the classification rules, the hypotheses tested, and what will and will not count as a discovery. The exploratory work on Gaia DR3 on which it builds is described in a Research Note under consideration in RNAAS (Chopard-Vilhem 2026); data and code: doi:10.5281/zenodo.23342415 (all versions; version 1.4.0 cited here: doi:10.5281/zenodo.23919572). The files are under embargo until the first article based on this plan is submitted, and at the latest until the embargo date shown on this record. Their SHA-256 checksums are published below, now, so that anyone can verify on release that the files are exactly those deposited before Gaia DR4. File SHA-256 preregistration_P4_DR4_v1.0.0.md — analysis plan, version 1.0.0 (frozen), with Appendix A: implementation clarifications dated before Gaia DR4 121259687d61b557a9642c078ebb68bcb0313134dce0cd55880c6164b52340a6 preenregistrement_P4_DR4_v1.3.md — French text of which the plan is an English translation, deposited only so that the translation can be verified (the English plan is authoritative) 7a04732c1a4e5c24c2bbe0eccbc87e4ad2ade986afc05f6d174927d849c91b66 protocole_classement_v2_3nov.md — classification protocol (French original, authoritative) f3c1049b0d4be2476d5bd4b2ce9b9c13541a622c9bbb6f4caf55c1e1fd12ba28 classification_protocol_v2_3nov_EN_translation.md — English translation of the classification protocol (the French original prevails) f39997a350a412579ddd287117bda2ad4ff9fc6ab40ee1c8efcedf2bc4ce7c9a eclipse_predictions.csv — reference eclipse predictions for hypothesis H8; identical to predictions/eclipse_predictions.csv in the public record doi:10.5281/zenodo.23919572 0211067c5921abe80b978b33f6f154e5922f67ba7d4b8b812901564bc878cc92 P4_test_cases_v2.2_deposit.zip — independent reference implementation, synthetic test cases, expected outputs, outputs of the production implementation and comparison report cited in Appendix A 38fd03ec14c63f9d5138251c1e08c0b99a77766126ca0e377c30c442062a1d1b Verification. Checksums are computed on the exact bytes of each file (UTF-8, LF line endings for text files). On a downloaded copy: sha256sum <file> (Linux) or shasum -a 256 <file> (macOS). FREEZE.txt lists the same checksums in a form readable by sha256sum -c. Deviations from the plan are permitted only if written and dated before the data they concern are read, and will be reported with their dates. Author: Théo Chopard-Vilhem, Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. ORCID 0009-0009-6177-3879.