Thursday, 13 November 2025

Universal Internal Coherence: A Multi-Scale Test of General Relativity with Astrophysical Data

I present the first comprehensive observational test of the principle of Universal Internal Coherence (UIC), a proposed relational invariant linking the causal structure of spacetime—through the locally measured speed of light or gravity—to its geometric structure, encoded in curvature-sensitive observables. We introduce the null-parameter SUIC = δc c0 + δπ π0 , which vanishes identically in General Relativity (GR) but may deviate from zero in theories where geometry and causality can decouple (e.g., scalar-tensor, varying-speed-of-light, or bimetric models). Using exclusively real astrophysical observations across four physical regimes—Cassini radio science (solar system), SLACS strong lensing (galactic), GW170817 multi-messenger constraints (cosmological), and the Hulse–Taylor binary pulsar (strong-field)—we obtain ¯ SUIC = (3.6 ± 3.0) × 10−25, dominated statistically by the |δc/c| < 3×10−15 constraint from GW170817. This confirms internal coherence at the 10−15 level. Independently, we use PSR B1913+16 to constrain scalar dipole emission and find |αcoupling| < 6.6 × 10−5 (95% CL), implying that any scalar degree of freedom coupled to the metric must be essentially inert. Together, these results place the strongest multi-scale constraints to date on the equivalence between causal and geometric structure in spacetime, and on any admissible deviation from General Relativity.

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