Validation boundaries

This page records current numerical and evidence limitations. It is a public description of observed behavior, not an operational backlog or work order.

Equilibrium source consistency

The bounded equilibrium lane computes the source-balanced Grad-Shafranov residual

\[ \frac{\lVert\Delta^*\psi + \mu_0 R J_\phi\rVert} {\max(\lVert\mu_0 R J_\phi\rVert,\Delta\psi)}. \]

The earlier source-free proxy misclassified shaped and high-beta equilibria by omitting the reconstructed \(R p' + FF'/(\mu_0 R)\) source. The current validator reconstructs \(J_\phi\) from GEQDSK \(p'\) and \(FF'\) profiles.

The available repository inputs have distinct evidence classes:

• SPARC GEQDSK inputs are public_reference design equilibria, not measured facility shots.
• DIII-D-like GEQDSK fixtures are synthetic and exercise numerical plumbing.
• A q95 value read from the same GEQDSK is a self-consistency observation, not an independent reconstruction comparison.

These inputs can pass a computational threshold without admitting physics, measured-shot, facility, public, or production claims.

Disruption-prediction replay

The repository replay data are synthetic. Recall and false-positive-rate results therefore describe the fixed-weight heuristic on those fixtures only. They are not a facility-database ROC, prospective warning-time study, or commissioned disruption-mitigation result.

Malformed or unsafe NPZ payloads fail closed per file and are never loaded with pickle enabled.

Transport scaling

The transport lane compares the implemented IPB98(y,2) calculation with curated published-reference rows. Its evidence class is public_reference. Agreement within the declared uncertainty band is a computational comparison against those rows; it does not establish a new multi-machine experimental validation.

Campaign-level interpretation

validation/validate_real_shots.py now emits the schema scpn-control.reference-evidence-validation.v1. Every lane declares exactly one of real, public_reference, synthetic, or local_proxy and reports data provenance separately from computational success.

The repository campaign mixes public-reference and synthetic evidence. Its real-shot, facility, public-claim, and production admissions are therefore fail-closed even when every numerical lane passes. The JSON and Markdown reports display those fields independently so a green calculation cannot be read as a green facility claim.

Reproduction

python validation/validate_real_shots.py --help
python validation/validate_real_shots.py \
  --output-json artifacts/reference_evidence_validation.json \
  --output-markdown artifacts/reference_evidence_validation.md

The validation guide explains the wider evidence taxonomy and the generated physics traceability report identifies component-level claim status.