I know not that much about astronomy, but I found this thread on Reddit and frankly I agree that the original paper does not spend enough time (the last two paragraphs of section 4.2) discussing the twin star hypothesis. Could anybody with more experience/knowledge explain why this is not plausible in this case? Is the main objection to this hypothesis that it is not clear how such a system would form without a disk of matter present?
I'm not an astronomy expert either, but see section 2.6: "Limits on a companion". That reddit thread didn't seem to realize that section 2.6 actually lays out the case against an undetected binary based on doppler shifts.
The 20% dip requires a large occluder, about as large as the F-class star itself - or more likely even larger assuming it isn't perfectly opaque/cohesive. A star that big should be detectable unless it is close enough to be indistinguishable, because stars only get that big due to fusion overcoming gravity. The doppler analysi...
KIC 8462852, or the WTF (Where's the Flux?) star, is an F-type main sequence star about 1,480 ly away. It's a little larger and more massive than the sun, and a few times brighter. Age is uncertain, but probably older rather than younger.
Kepler observations over the last few years reveal very strange large and aperiodic flux variations (up to 20%) - of the general form predicted by some ETI megastructure models. However there doesn't appear to be any excess infrared.
The star's fluctuations were discovered by the PlanetHunters team. In the WTF paper they review a large number of unlikely natural explanations and settle on an unusual comet swarm as the most likely scenario.
Abstract of the WTF paper:
From "Comets or Aliens?", on the Planet Hunters blog: " However, so far over 100 professional scientists have had a look at the lightcurves and not managed to come up with a working solution."
In a another recent paper Jason Wright et al discusses the WTF star in more detail and critiques the comet theory.
The Search for Extraterrestial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. IV: the Signatures and Information Content of Transiting Megastructures:
Jason Wright discusses WTF here on his blog.
Big reddit discussion on r/askscience here.