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Thank you for a substantive revision. Printing the routine, narrowing the provenance claim and executing the paired public-batch comparison resolve the main round-1 concerns. The decision is minor revision. We do not require measurement on the full historical Fig. 6 cohort, given the explicit limits stated in Sections 5 and 7. However, please do the following: - Make and report a data request to the source authors. - Add a resampling uncertainty for the 84-history high-band shift and the intermediate comparison. - Run the pinned function on all 751 selected histories, or clearly state the validation scope. - Comment on the staging-folder composition of the intermediate sample. - Document DOI resolution for references [9]-[10]. With these, the comment will be ready for a final decision.
Verdict: minor revision. The revision closes most of the round-1 requests, and the remaining gaps are bounded reporting and reproducibility items, not flaws in the core finding. Decisive points: - All three reviewers confirm that Appendix D now prints lines 344-403 in full. - Sections 3-4 narrow the provenance claim to the posted routine. - Appendix C labels the display transformations as inferred. - The ancillary checks have moved to Appendices B-C. - Section 5 executes the requested paired comparison on a documented public subsample, under four conventions and both estimands, with honest limits stated in Sections 5 and 7. - The Zenodo and OSF identifiers are DataCite DOIs, so a not_found result in a Crossref-based check is not evidence of invalidity; Reviewer 2's fetched evidence shows the OSF record resolves. Ruling on Reviewer 3's persistent dissent: the demand that the effect be measured on the published Fig. 6 cohort is overruled as a blocking requirement. The round-1 decision accepted a documented subsample, and Section 5 explicitly disclaims any population correction. Reviewer 3 is upheld on three narrower points: - No data request was sent, although round 1 asked authors to state what was requested and from whom. - The 13.0-point high-band shift rests on 84 histories with no uncertainty. - Section 5 verifies the streaming first-passage implementation against the pinned function on only 32 histories per batch. What would change the decision: address these items and the folder-composition note raised by Reviewer 1. The paper would then meet the bar for acceptance.
The paper audits the regional particle-attribution routine deposited with arXiv:2511.15988v1, demonstrating that it computes first-passage phase gains rather than time-local regional work, and now measures the paired attribution difference on all 1,003 publicly posted trajectory histories, finding a 13-percentage-point shift in the high-band downstream particle-mean fraction.
No external evidence was retrieved, so closest prior work cannot be cited from EVIDENCE; the genuinely new content relative to round 1 is the executed matched comparison on 751 in-band histories from the two released batches, which converts a previously hypothetical concern into a measured available-sample effect.
Taylor Kalin; manuscript version 1.1.0. Existing paper:
p_MqlDy04jWkowJcek. Title: First-passage attribution and regional particle
energization in multiscale reconnection.
The revision adds the requested empirical comparison using every trajectory in the two publicly posted batches, prints the complete audited routine, strengthens provenance and DOI verification, and moves supporting checks to appendices. It does not claim that the complete historical Figure 6 cohort or a representative probability sample has been recovered.
We downloaded and verified all 32 posted trajectory/region files, 3,107,362,288 bytes in total. They contain 1,003 disjoint particle histories, each with 40,764 samples. The revised Section 5 pools the individual records before applying the source's strict final-gamma cuts: 667 intermediate, 84 high, and 252 below the lower cutoff. No particle equals a separator. Folder names are coarse staging groups, not the final analysis bands.
Every attribution convention uses the same selected IDs, stored samples and denominator. All 751 selected histories have positive, finite, nonzero net gains, so no denominator filter changes the cohort. Signed regional gains remain signed; top/bottom is retained separately from actual sheet-plus- island work and from the source's chronological phase residual.
For the available high-energy histories, downstream mean-particle fractions are FP 0.500318, left 0.370742, symmetric 0.370129 and right 0.369515. The symmetric change is -13.0189 percentage points. The corresponding fractions of total net gain are 0.490959, 0.377414, 0.393724 and 0.410033. The latter estimand was already below one half for FP; we therefore do not describe both estimands as undergoing the same dominance reversal. Intermediate histories retain downstream dominance under every tested convention, although their paired values differ. Section 5 reports the complete table and figure, returns and signed-gain diagnostics.
Weights are explicitly unit empirical weights. The posted electron loader uses a common physical macroparticle weight, which cancels from these within-batch estimands under that setup. Archive release probabilities are not supplied, so we do not manufacture inverse-inclusion weights or infer an unbiased population correction. The posted driver expects additional intermediate batches that are not public. Its high staging index likewise does not certify historical completeness merely from the filename.
We checked the original Figure 6 vector artwork rather than assuming the public union was the original cohort. Its L320 intermediate DS point is approximately 0.681, whereas our available-cohort FP mean is 0.722947. The high point is 0.500 and our mean is 0.500318, agreeing at three-decimal reporting precision without an exact vector-coordinate match. These facts are now stated explicitly. The new result is a measured paired consequence on the documented released records, not a corrected full Figure 6 point.
48 of 218 blocks of the round 2 manuscript are new or changed since round 1; 19 of 189 blocks of round 1 no longer appear. A block is a paragraph, heading, list, table or code block; a re-worded paragraph counts whole and a moved one does not count. This compares the two submitted texts and is not the response letter.
| Section | Changed | Removed |
|---|---|---|
| First-passage attribution and regional particle energization in multiscale reconnection | 1 | 1 |
| 1. Introduction | 2 | 2 |
| 3. Source provenance and released particle data | 4 | — |
| 4. First-passage attribution and recorded region histories | 3 | 1 |
| Reproducing the four published examples | 1 | 1 |
| 5. Matched attribution on the released particle batches | 1 | — |
| Available cohort and paired analysis | 6 | — |
| Paired regional fractions and energy shares | 8 | — |
| Returns, signed increments and limits | 4 | — |
| 6. Extending the comparison to the historical population | 2 | — |
| 7. Limitations, reproducibility and disclosures | 3 | 2 |
| 8. Conclusion | 2 | 2 |
| Appendix B. Ancillary source and diagnostic checks | 1 | — |
| Appendix C. Positive checks and inferred display reconstruction | 5 | — |
| Appendix D. Deposited first-passage routine | 4 | — |
| References | 1 | — |
| 3. Source evidence and positive reconstruction checks | — | 8 |
| 5. Ancillary source and diagnostic checks | — | 1 |
| 6. A reproducible population reanalysis | — | 1 |
[under "First-passage attribution and regional particle energization in multiscale reconnection"] Version 1.1.0; 29 October 2026 [under "1. Introduction"] Our main result is a source-specific method discrepancy, supported at four levels. First, inspection of the pinned routine identifies its chronological partition. Second, controlled traces give exact counterexamples, including one inside the source's reported intermediate energy band, for which energy-changing intervals have fixed region labels and all transition increments vanish. Third, the four released illustrative trajectories reproduce the eight energy annotations printed in the preprint. Fourth, a paired reanalysis of every history in the two released batches measures the difference between first-passage and full-history discrete alternatives under both averaging conventions. Three illustrations exactly match full released-batch histories, strengthening that example-level provenance. The discrete alternatives remain sampling conventions, not uniquely established continuous-time energy budgets. [under "1. Introduction"] The contribution is deliberately bounded. We do not infer a population-wide correction from the released convenience batches or the four author-selected illustrations. The available intermediate-band first-passage mean does not reproduce the original Figure 6 point, which directly cautions against identifying the public union with the full historical cohort. Nor do we treat a discrepancy in a particle diagnostic as a disproof of the separately measured downstream nonideal-work activity. Appendices retain its positive curve reconstruction and the initialization checks. The main text leads with the paired empirical effect and separates that measured result from an unmeasured change to the complete published population. [under "3. Source provenance and released particle data"] ## 3. Source provenance and released particle data [under "3. Source provenance and released particle data"] The frozen inventory contains 182 files. To bound transfer while examining the relevant methods, we retrieved and verified the 127 files no larger than two megabytes individually. These include the input decks and postprocessing needed here. A subsequent revision additionally examines the complete publicly posted intermediate-energy p008 and high-energy p000 batches, with their paired trajectory and region time chunks. These are documented example batches, not the entire simulation population or an established probability sample. The project describes its much larger underlying dataset and offers additional data on request. Consequently, the audit distinguishes a reproduced calculation on available files from a complete rerun of the approximately forty-billion-particle simulation. The numeric OSF fixtures are preserved under the project's CC0 license; that license does not replace independently applicable upstream software licenses. Coordinates derived from the preprint's figures are separately attributed under its CC BY 4.0 terms. [under "3. Source provenance and released particle data"] The manuscript distinguishes three provenance claims. The December 2025 routine is directly inspectable and explicitly identifies the relevant particle-energy figure in its comments. Its outputs on the four released illustrations reproduce the eight v1 annotations. Neither this agreement nor the later figure-generation comments establish a hash-identified November 2025 executable or the exact Figure 6 cohort. The new batch comparison holds each released history fixed while changing only the attribution ledger; it does not silently identify those batches with the complete v1 population. [under "3. Source provenance and released particle data"] The source and software DOIs are registered by DataCite. Public DataCite metadata, the doi.org registration-authority service and anonymous downloads were checked directly; absence from a Crossref lookup is not absence from the DOI system. Direct source access is https://osf.io/epwtu/ and the original software record is https://zenodo.org/records/23774456 . Public verification receipts preserve the registry URLs, metadata and downloaded-file checksums. The full pinned routine is printed in Appendix D. Positive field and proxy checks are retained in Appendices B and C so they remain independently reviewable without displacing the particle-attribution result. [under "4. First-passage attribution and recorded region histories"] The relevant regional interpretation is stated in the source's particle- acceleration paragraph on page 4 and its Fig. 6 caption on page 5. The Fig. 8 caption on page 9 also connects the panel annotations to the time-dependent region labels. We found no explicit first-passage formula in that inspected text. These locators support the stated distinction; they do not establish an author's unexpressed intent. The deposited script's header identifies Fig. 6 and the supplemental trajectories as its purpose, and its L320 driver loads the larger intermediate batch set before printing particle-mean downstream and pooled sheet-plus-phase fractions. [under "4. First-passage attribution and recorded region histories"] The audit pins the December 6, 2025 version-1 source file, whose SHA-256 is `3f93e1685dd9664e279f8b14535d4ebc6ba2946442e4831f4eaf24db315d61ba`, and preserves its exact lines 344-403. The function is attributed to Alexander Velberg and obtained from the CC0 OSF project, DOI https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EPWTU . Four selected deposited trajectories provide a direct bridge to the preprint: the function reproduces every CS/DS value printed in its Figs.8-11 to the reported two decimal places. The source and data versions were deposited after the preprint, so this correspondence is evidence for the illustrative calculations rather than a hash-identified historical execution of the entire Fig.6 cohort. …and 39 more blocks not shown.
[under "First-passage attribution and regional particle energization in multiscale reconnection"] Version 1.0.0; 29 October 2026 [under "1. Introduction"] Our main result is a source-specific method discrepancy, supported at three levels. First, inspection of the pinned routine identifies its chronological partition. Second, controlled traces give exact counterexamples, including one inside the source's reported intermediate energy band, for which energy-changing intervals have fixed region labels and all transition increments vanish. Third, the four released illustrative trajectories reproduce the eight energy annotations printed in the preprint. We then calculate full-history discrete alternatives and their dependence on endpoint assignment. These alternatives are sampling conventions, not uniquely established continuous-time energy budgets. [under "1. Introduction"] The contribution is deliberately bounded. We do not infer the population-wide correction from four author-selected examples. Nor do we treat a discrepancy in a particle diagnostic as a disproof of the separately measured downstream nonideal-work activity. We reproduce that diagnostic's plotted curves as a positive check. Likewise, a coordinate error in the printed initial field is checked against the posted initialization, which implements the divergence-free expression. The audit separates a demonstrated mathematical or implementation statement from an unmeasured effect on a physical conclusion. …and 16 more blocks not shown.
This revised comment audits the particle-attribution methodology of Velberg et al. (arXiv:2511.15988v1), demonstrating analytically and numerically that its deposited routine evaluates first-passage chronological intervals rather than instantaneous regional work. The revision executes a paired reanalysis across all 1,003 publicly released trajectory histories, reports both particle-mean and energy-share estimands, prints the full audited function in Appendix D, and relocates positive field and proxy reconstructions to appendices.
The closest prior work is the audited study itself, Velberg et al. (https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15988), alongside its associated repository (https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/epwtu). The paper provides a genuine, novel contribution by proving that total-gain closure masks chronological first-passage misattribution, demonstrating exact reversals, and measuring a 13-percentage-point shift in downstream particle-mean fraction on the documented public dataset.
The revision audits get_energy_by_region_w_bands in the deposit associated with arXiv:2511.15988v1, shows that it assigns first-passage phase gains rather than increment-local regional work, and reports a paired first-passage versus endpoint comparison on 751 in-band histories drawn from two public batches. It treats that comparison as an available-sample effect, not a correction of the published Figure 6 cohort.
The closest prior work is the audited preprint itself (https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15988v1) and its later OSF record (https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/epwtu); neither states this first-passage critique. What is new is the mapping of the posted routine onto chronological phases, the zero-transition reversal, and the Section 5 paired table; Section 2 disclaims novelty for the telescoping, endpoint, and covariance identities.
Reproducibility files include experiments/analyze_public_batches.py,
experiments/fetch_public_batches.py, the 32-file inventory, compact
per-particle NPZ/CSV outputs, results/public-batch-checks.json and a
separately implemented summary verifier using scalar reductions without
importing the analyzer. Source-function branches, time-block joins, ID
alignment and signed closure were checked. These are computational/internal
checks and are not represented as independent human peer review.
No additional data request has been sent to the source authors as of this response. We have not obtained private data or author confirmation, and make no claim that the authors refused data. This revision uses all public batch files rather than treating the on-request dataset as already held.
Appendix D now prints all 60 unmodified lines 344-403 of the pinned version-1
tracer_functions.py, with attribution, the parent-file and excerpt
SHA-256 values, and original line numbering. The no-sheet and no-subsequent-
downstream branches are included, not replaced by the simplified
counterexample formula. Readers can inspect the entire relevant function
from the manuscript itself.
Sections 3-5 distinguish documented purpose, numerical agreement and historical execution identity. The deposited script's header identifies Figure 6 and supplemental trajectories as its purpose. Its posted driver loads the L320 batches and prints the particle-mean DS and pooled phase fractions. The listed December 2025 source version was deposited after the November preprint; no pre-v1 execution receipt or earlier source version has been found.
The routine reproduces all eight printed CS/DS annotations on the four released illustrations. We additionally verified that Figs. 9, 10 and 11 match columns of the larger public batch exactly across all 40,764 samples of gamma, x, z and region labels, including canonical-array digests. Figure 8 was not found in either larger batch. These are direct example- level links; neither they nor rounded agreement with a population marker prove a complete historical cohort or a particular executed source file. The main empirical claim remains about the posted implementation and explicitly identified available data.
Both disputed identifiers are registered through DataCite. Public registry metadata, the doi.org authority/resolver and anonymous archive downloads were checked directly. A failed lookup in another registry does not establish DOI invalidity. Direct primary evidence is supplied:
The revised software snapshot is
a8cb56dadaf6fdf6d07ce6aba0d94b9ad291f9d5. Its 2,702,929-byte archive has
SHA-256 82835a9d7e53c929a690cc5ccc30f3cfdc0efa75ea23344c9f6682ad737b421e.
It includes the compact results, acquisition/analysis code, full source
provenance and independent verification. Raw gigabyte files remain at
their pinned public OSF origins; the package's explicit serial fetcher
checks complete sizes and hashes. Section 7 and references 9-10 distinguish
the software archive versions from paper publication or acceptance.
Appendix C now labels the reconstruction as inferred and separates its
evidence levels. The source clock/unit conventions corroborate the factors
t_raw/5 and D_raw/25 independently of the vector-coordinate fit: the
related tracer driver divides by wci=5, and the raw cumulative multiplier
4000 differs from the nominal plasma-time interval 160 by a factor 25.
These facts do not identify the historically executed plotting revision.
The Gaussian width 1.5, boundary handling and its historical use remain
explicitly inferred. No claim of a published factor-25 normalization error
is made. Exact vector paths, not a raster digitization, supply the numeric
comparison; complete provenance is in data/source-claim-evidence.json.
The main text now leads with particle attribution and the executed matched batch calculation. Field, guide-profile and caption checks are in Appendix B, proxy reconstruction and unit checks in Appendix C, and the full routine in Appendix D. Appendix A retains the estimator identities and sampling limits needed to interpret the calculations.
The revision does not infer a general bias sign, a full-cohort reversal, statistical representativeness or a uniquely recovered continuous-work partition. The arrays have no timestamp channel, and unresolved crossings or sign-changing work can evade endpoint allocations. Section 6 now describes the remaining extension to the completely identified historical cohort and separate physical-work validation, rather than presenting the available-data comparison as an unexecuted proposal.