Primary-report research queue for the gravitational framework: redshift, propagation delay, light deflection, perihelion advance, binary timing and interferometric strain

Scope-and-queue record for the empirical layer of the classical gravitational framework, stated in the vocabulary of Model configurations, interface readouts, operational models, data records and the analysis vocabulary of the experiment interface.

(i) Status of the empirical layer. The source design of the experimental interface reserves a definition of the observation and analysis architecture (delivered by Model configurations, interface readouts, operational models, data records and the analysis vocabulary of the experiment interface) and this primary-report research queue. No experiment item is authored in this batch and no measured value is recorded anywhere in it. The research label M20 of the source design, the primary-report and analysis layer, remains unsupplied: before any experiment item can be authored on a destination, the actual primary report must be retrieved and read in full, and the record must carry the apparatus and preparation, the operational definitions of the measured quantities, the calibration model, the sampling and error model, the treatment of systematic effects, the measured values with their reported uncertainties, and the source's own limitations. Secondary surveys and lecture notes describe these report families and their analysis structure; they are not substitutes for the primary reports and no number attributed to any of them is asserted here.

(ii) Report families. The source design names six primary-report search destinations, that is, families of published reports to retrieve and read in full; no destination is evidence for any postulate. For each family the in-framework model-side content that a comparison would consume is named by its item, and the missing predictions are recorded as future obligations rather than assumed.

1. Redshift and clock comparisons. Comparisons of identical frequency standards or clocks at rest at different locations in a gravitational field, and, as a separate subdestination, comparisons involving clocks transported along different worldlines (Will section 2.1.3; Carroll (7.61)-(7.62); Tong section 1.2.5). Model-side content available: the frequency-ratio and redshift readouts of Model configurations, interface readouts, operational models, data records and the analysis vocabulary of the experiment interface clause (b)1, realized for static observers by pthm-gr-schwarzschild-stationary-redshift and for comoving observers by pthm-gr-flrw-cosmological-redshift. These restricted theorems do not supply a prediction for transported clocks. Such a comparison must specify the transported and reference worldline segments of clause (a) and the events at which readings are compared. For clocks that separate and reunite, the comparison quantity is the difference, in seconds, between their proper-time increments over the two segments with common initial and final events, under the adopted ideal-clock rule. That accumulated-time comparison needs its own readout definition and trajectory-specific calculation; it is not a frequency-ratio readout of clause (b)1. A comparison by received signals instead uses clause (b)1 with the actual endpoint four-velocities and connecting null rays, together with a declared signal-transfer convention. Predictions for these transported-clock configurations must retain both metric and velocity dependence, including velocity-dependent clock rates; the two restricted redshift formulas cannot be substituted for them. These predictions remain future obligations. Every comparison also needs the apparatus, calibration, relevant line-shape modelling and statistical analysis of an actual report, as in (i).

2. Light-propagation delay. Measurements of the variation of round-trip travel times of signals passing near a massive body, analysed differentially against an ephemeris (Will section 4.1.2; Carroll printed p. 181). The interface readout is the radar readout of clause (b)2 of Model configurations, interface readouts, operational models, data records and the analysis vocabulary of the experiment interface. Model-side content: no in-framework prediction theorem for the round-trip delay exists in the library; a restricted prediction for a specified ray family and reflector worldline would have to be authored before any comparison.

3. Light deflection. Measurements of the change in angular separation of sources whose lines of sight pass near a massive body, by optical astrometry or radio interferometry, with a fitted deflection coefficient (Will section 4.1.1; Carroll printed p. 181). The interface readout is the deflection readout of clause (b)3. Model-side content: no in-framework prediction theorem for the deflection angle of a specified ray exists; it is a future obligation.

4. Perihelion advance. Measurements of the residual precession of an almost-elliptical planetary orbit after the perturbations of the other bodies and the precession of the equinoxes have been modelled and removed, analysed over long astrometric baselines (Will section 4.2; Carroll (7.56)-(7.57)). The interface readout is the perihelion-advance readout of clause (b)4. Model-side content: the restricted Schwarzschild page supplies circular-orbit and photon-sphere predictions only (pthm-gr-schwarzschild-circular-orbit-predictions); a prediction of the advance of an eccentric orbit is a future obligation.

5. Binary-system timing. Analyses of pulse arrival-time series of relativistic binary pulsars, in which orbital and relativistic parameters are fitted to a timing model (Will section 6.1). The interface readout is the arrival-time readout of clause (b)5. Model-side content: the framework contains no binary dynamics, no gravitational-wave source model and no timing-model theorem; these are future obligations in a different module.

6. Interferometric strain. Measurements of strain by laser-interferometric observatories and proposals for pulsar timing arrays (Will section 7.1; Carroll Ch. 6; Tong sections 5.2-5.3). The interface readout is the strain readout of clause (b)6. Model-side content: the ideal two-body detector of def-gr-linearized-wave-regime-and-detector-coupling clause (c) and the response theorem pthm-gr-plane-wave-tidal-detector-response. What is still missing: a source model producing the waveform, the propagation of light in the instrument, readout and noise models, calibration, and a statistical analysis; without them no comparison is instantiable.

(iii) Analysis obligations for every future comparison. Each comparison will require a declared comparison rule of clause (g) of Model configurations, interface readouts, operational models, data records and the analysis vocabulary of the experiment interface, an operational model whose prediction map satisfies condition $(\ast )$, a data record with declared closed bounds or separately defined source-reported estimates and scales, a declared treatment of calibration and of the dominant systematic effects, and, for reported data, the primary report's own sampling and error model. Agreement of a prediction with a record tests the combined model, apparatus and analysis assumptions; it is evidence, not a deductive proof of the model or of any postulate.

(iv) Qualifications any future comparison must carry. The following are part of the interface contract and must appear in any consuming item: (a) model predictions are conditional on the adopted postulates and on the explicit hypotheses of the prediction theorem; (b) observations are reported under the source's conditions and limitations; (c) finite-sample agreement does not establish a postulate or a model, and a finite hard-bound record does not by itself determine a unique parameter; (d) a p-value would not be the probability that a theory is false and a confidence level would not be a posterior probability; (e) reported standard uncertainties are not hard bounds and carry no coverage guarantee; (f) every conclusion inherits the calibration dependence, systematic limitations and selection assumptions of the source.

(v) Pointer. The primary observations, when they are eventually recorded, belong in experiment items with their own empirical contracts; the comparison arithmetic belongs in a separate proved item. This remark is a queue and status pointer only: it supplies no independent empirical conclusion and no certainty.