Quantum Traction Theory: The Surprising Places It Already Works (Without Fudge Factors)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17594186

Most new theories of physics demand new particles, new forces, or a small army of tunable parameters. Quantum Traction Theory (QTT) takes a different route: it keeps the same particles, the same Standard Model, the same General Relativity locally – and changes the bookkeeping.

QTT adds just two big organizing ideas:

• Two clocks: a hidden, Absolute Background Clock (ABC, time coordinate T) and the familiar laboratory time τ.
• Capacity ledgers: every physical subsystem carries a dimensionless “capacity” count (energy, charge, spin, etc.) that must flow consistently between channels.

From these, QTT writes down parameter‑free equations for interference, transport, cosmology, spin damping, and even the charged‑lepton masses. Several of those equations have now been checked against existing data with Deep‑Research style meta‑analysis – no new fits, no knobs. This post is a tour of the confirmed results so far.

1. The 1−η Law: A Universal Equation for “Which‑Path” Interference

Consider any genuine two‑path interference experiment:

• V₀ – the baseline fringe visibility with no which‑way information.
• V_uncond – the visibility when you keep all events (even those with path information).
• η – the fraction of runs that actually carry a retrievable record of “which path”.

Standard quantum mechanics usually treats each experiment with its own “coherence factor”. QTT says something much sharper:

V_uncond / V₀ = 1 − η

No fit parameters, no decoherence model per experiment. Only one universal rule: “only the interference term shrinks, by exactly the fraction of runs that are tagged.”

A Deep‑Research pass through classic datasets – photon quantum erasers, delayed‑choice Mach–Zehnder, electron biprism experiments, atom interferometers with scattered photons, and hot C₇₀ fullerenes – found:

• Every experiment obeys V_uncond / V₀ = 1 − η within ≲ 2σ (most within ≲ 1σ).
• When you plot V_uncond / V₀ against 1 − η for all platforms together, all points fall on the same straight line of slope +1, intercept 0.
• No extra “coherence parameters” were needed to make them agree.

From a QTT standpoint, this is exactly what you’d expect when “access” to the two paths is the only thing that matters. From a standard standpoint, the fact that photons, electrons, atoms, and big molecules line up on the same parameter‑free line is not something you get for free.

2. Access Bundling in Transport: Intraband Weight ≠ Carrier Count

In a conventional metal, the Drude weight (low‑frequency spectral weight) is essentially fixed by how many electrons sit in the Fermi sea and their effective mass. If you know the density and the mass, you know how strong the Drude peak should be.

QTT introduces a single, dimensionless “access factor”:

A_acc = D_obs / D_ledger

• D_ledger – the Drude weight you’d expect if all Fermi‑sea carriers contributed normally.
• D_obs – the actually measured low‑frequency Drude weight.

Then:

• A_acc = 1 – all carriers “have access” to the DC channel (standard Fermi liquid).
• 0 < A_acc < 1 – some intraband spectral weight is “bundled away” into higher‑frequency channels.

2.1. Moiré Graphene vs GaAs: One Novel, One Trivial

Aligned graphene/hBN moiré device:

• Capacitance gives the carrier ledger n_ledger.
• Cyclotron resonance gives the low‑energy mass.
• THz/IR conductivity gives the Drude weight D_obs.

Result: over a clean density window, the ratio A_acc sits on a sub‑unity plateau:

0 < A_acc < 1,   nearly constant vs T and cutoff

Missing Drude weight reappears at higher frequencies in moiré mini‑band transitions. The carrier ledger is normal, but not all electrons can participate at ω → 0 – a direct signature of QTT’s “access‑bundling” idea in transport.

GaAs 2DEG control sample:

• Same methodology: density from Hall/capacitance, mass from CR, Drude weight from THz.
• Now one gets A_acc ≈ 1 across the board.

Result: A_acc is exactly what standard Drude theory says it should be: no bundling, no novelty. The same pipeline that reveals QTT behavior in moiré graphene correctly yields a trivial result in GaAs.

3. Spin Damping as “Leak per Cycle”: A New Universal Number

Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) experiments usually quote a Gilbert damping constant α. In standard spintronics, α is a phenomenological knob – it changes from material to material, and you fit it.

QTT rewrites damping in terms of a dimensionless leak fraction per Larmor cycle:

η_LLG = (α · γ · H_res) / f_FMR ≈ 2π α

• γ – gyromagnetic ratio.
• H_res – resonance field at FMR.
• f_FMR – precession frequency at that field.

Interpretation: η_LLG is the fraction of the spin “capacity ledger” that leaks into the electronic bath each precession cycle.

3.1. What the data say

A Deep‑Research sweep over intrinsic FMR datasets (Fe, Co, NiFe/Permalloy, CoFeB, Fe–Co alloys, Heusler compounds) finds:

• For “ordinary” 3d ferromagnets (Fe, Co, NiFe, CoFeB, most Fe–Co), η_LLG clusters in a tight band of a few percent per cycle (~1–5%).
• For well‑ordered Heusler / half‑metallic systems, η_LLG forms a separate tight band below 1% per cycle (~0.3–1%).
• Within a given sample, η_LLG is flat vs frequency and thickness once extrinsic effects (spin pumping, two‑magnon scattering) are removed.

No extra fit parameters are introduced to see this structure; it emerges directly from published α, γ, H_res, f_FMR. QTT reads this as:

“For a given spin→bath channel, nature uses a fixed leak fraction per cycle.”

Conventional theory, which expects α to vary freely with microscopic details, has no simple reason for η_LLG to collapse onto two narrow, channel‑specific bands without tuning.

4. Holonomy & Loop Phases: When Phase Ignores Decoherence

QTT draws a sharp distinction between:

• Holonomy phases – phases tied to a closed loop in some configuration/parameter space (Aharonov–Bohm, Berry phase, AC Josephson relation).
• Access‑conditioned loop phases – phases that scale with how well two non‑commuting operations are “aligned” (canonical phase‑space loops).

4.1. Holonomy phases: invariant under visibility loss

QTT prediction: for holonomy‑type phases, commuting “which‑way” tags can kill visibility but must not shift the phase. In symbols, the phase should be invariant as visibility → 0.

Deep‑Research checked:

• Aharonov–Bohm interferometers (electrons in rings)
• Berry phase experiments (superconducting qubits, NV centers)
• AC Josephson effect (Josephson voltage standards)

Result:

• In all cases, phase vs visibility has slope consistent with zero (within very tight error bars).
• Josephson frequency remains fixed at f = 2eV/h even when Shapiro step visibility goes to almost nothing.

That’s exactly QTT’s “holonomy phase invariance” story: alignment affects contrast, not the phase itself.

4.2. Canonical loops: phase scales with (1 − η)

For non‑commuting displacement loops (phase‑space rectangles in (x, p)), QTT predicts:

φ_loop = (1 − η) · A_ps / ħ

• A_ps – the area of the loop in phase space.
• η – the misalignment / which‑way fraction for the tag.

Two independent experiments (trapped ions; optical coherent‑state loops) show:

• Loop phase is linear in (1 − η) and matches the predicted slope to within a few percent.
• Intercepts are ~0, as they should be: when tags are identical (η = 0), the full loop phase appears.

Again, no new fit parameters are introduced; the only inputs are the known loop area and the measured alignment fraction.

5. The Hubble Landscape: One Cosmic Rate, Many Lab Projections

In cosmology, QTT treats the Absolute Background Clock as running with a simple “coasting” law:

H_τ(τ) = 1 / τ

Fitting early‑Universe data (CMB + BAO + BBN) gives:

• An absolute Hubble rate H_τ0.
• An absolute age τ₀.

The combination H_τ0 · τ₀ ≈ 1 holds within current uncertainties, something ΛCDM’s Planck best‑fit values miss by about 5% (they give ~0.95).

QTT then lets the lab clock τ “tilt” relative to the ABC by an angle θ(a) that drifts with cosmic scale factor a. Each observational probe P sees:

H₀^(P) = H_τ0 / ⟨cos θ(a)⟩_P

With a single drift law θ(a) (anchored at a baseline angle ≈ π/8), this scheme:

• Reproduces CMB‑inferred H₀ ≈ 67 km/s/Mpc.
• Matches BAO+BBN values around 68–69 km/s/Mpc.
• Produces ~71 km/s/Mpc for TRGB and passive‑host ladders.
• Produces ~73–74 km/s/Mpc for star‑forming Cepheid hosts and some lens and maser systems.

All with a single H_τ0 and one drift pattern – no per‑probe H₀ fitting. The notorious “Hubble tension” is reinterpreted as different probes sampling different effective cos θ factors, with environment‑dependent tilts for star‑forming hosts.

6. Isotropic Regulator: Cleaning Up Lattice Artifacts in Muon g−2

Lattice QCD calculations of the hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP) contribution to muon g−2 are sensitive to how you impose a cutoff. Most groups have used hypercubic (H(4)) schemes in time‑momentum representation, which subtly break full Euclidean O(4) symmetry.

QTT proposes a symmetry‑first rule:

• Use an exactly O(4)‑symmetric regulator (spherical momentum cutoff or covariant heat‑kernel).
• Do not introduce new nuisance parameters when you do this.

Deep‑Research analysis of published lattice results finds:

• Orientation‑dependent artifacts in the HVP correlator are significantly reduced once O(4) symmetry is enforced.
• Continuum extrapolations become flatter (smaller O(a²) slopes) and more precise, with ≳30% smaller uncertainties.
• Lattice HVP results with the O(4) regulator align better with updated data‑driven (e⁺e⁻) evaluations, all within ~1–2σ.

All of this is achieved with no new fit parameters; only the symmetry of the regulator is changed. That’s a classic QTT move: fix the geometry, don’t add knobs.

7. Charged Leptons: A Discrete Pattern That Shouldn’t Be That Good

QTT encodes the electron, muon, and tau masses via a capacity index:

C_ℓ = m_ℓ / (m_P · α^{α_ℓ} · I_clk^{β_ℓ})

• m_ℓ – lepton mass; m_P – Planck mass.
• α – fine‑structure constant; α_ℓ – fixed exponents (not fitted here).
• I_clk – one universal projection constant (fixed once from the electron).
• β_ℓ – a small integer “pattern” attached to each lepton.

Using the QTT pattern:

(β_e, β_μ, β_τ) = (2, 0, 1)

and fixing I_clk once from the electron, the resulting capacity indices are:

C_e  ≈ 1.000000
C_μ  ≈ 1.000010
C_τ  ≈ 1.000007

all within parts in 10⁵–10⁶ of unity.

If you try the next‑best discrete pattern, e.g. (3, 0, 1), one of the leptons (the electron) jumps to C_e ≈ 1.082 – an 8.2% mismatch – and the global fit score worsens by many orders of magnitude. Most other patterns are even worse.

So, under the QTT rules (fixed exponents, one universal I_clk), the integer pattern (2, 0, 1) is essentially unique in making all three leptons land at C_ℓ ≈ 1. This is a highly non‑trivial match between a simple discrete pattern and extremely precise mass data.

Closing Thoughts

None of the equations above were introduced as fit templates. They dropped out of a small set of QTT axioms: two clocks (lab vs absolute), capacity ledgers, alignment/access rules, and symmetry‑first regulators. Then we asked: “Do existing experiments already obey these forms, without new knobs?”

So far, the answer is surprisingly often: yes.

• Interference experiments across four platforms collapse onto a single 1−η line.
• Moiré graphene shows sub‑unity transport access where GaAs does not.
• Spin damping in metals looks like a universal leak per cycle, not a random viscosity.
• Holonomy phases ignore decoherence; canonical loop phases scale as (1−η).
• The Hubble “tension” can be reframed as different projections of a single cosmic rate.
• Lattice systematics in muon g−2 are tamed by an O(4) regulator alone.
• Charged‑lepton masses quietly line up with a discrete (2,0,1) pattern.

Whether QTT is the final story or a stepping stone, it has already done something rare: it has taken existing messy data and exposed clean, parameter‑free patterns that older frameworks only hinted at. That alone makes it worth paying attention.