Restricted Corridor State Transitions in the January TESS Light Curve Data of 3I/ATLAS

The January TESS light‑curve data of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS were analyzed using a state‑based framework to characterize short‑timescale dynamical behavior. After detrending and Z‑normalizing the residuals, the time series was partitioned into four dynamical states using k‑means clustering. A contiguous low‑variance segment was identified and associated with a single cluster, interpreted as a safe‑mode state. The 15‑step state sequence immediately preceding the first entry into this state (the entry sequence) was extracted and compared against permutation and first‑order Markov null models. The observed system exhibits only 197 unique 15‑step paths into safe‑mode, whereas Markov simulations produce on average ~2246 unique paths. Across 300 Markov trials, none of the synthetic paths match any observed path, yielding a Jaccard similarity of 0.0. The entry sequence appears exactly once in the data, immediately before safe‑mode, and has extremely low probability under both null models. Despite these global constraints, positional entropy in observed paths is similar to that of synthetic paths, indicating locally stochastic behavior. These results show that the transition into safe‑mode is governed by a restricted set of multi‑step histories rather than by a memoryless relaxation process. The system behaves as though entry into the low‑variance state is gated by higher‑order constraints on state sequences. This work highlights the value of sequence‑level analyses for identifying non‑Markovian structure in irregular light curves.