Single-photon interference and delayed-choice experiments resist any account that treats the photon as a localized object carrying a private classical history. We propose the boundary-defined null connection (BDNC) view: a photon event is a null spacetime relation completed jointly by emission and absorption, with observable behavior fixed by the complete experimental boundary. The null-relation primitive itself is not novel — it appears in Kastner's relativistic transactional interpretation, Sorkin's causal-set null-link program, and the all-at-once / TSVF / Fixed Point Formulation literature. The contribution is unifying language: BDNC compresses these into a single vocabulary and identifies one operational criterion — whether the boundary modifies only post-selected correlations or also unsorted marginals. The latter case, parameterized by a generic future-state weighting ansatz, amounts to no-signaling violation rather than a BDNC-specific law; we outline two marginal-stability protocols and one weak-measurement consistency check that would constrain such deviations. The principal claim is therefore a unifying diagnostic, not a new falsifiable prediction: any predictive version must derive a BDNC-specific functional form for the future-state weighting. §11 sketches Twistor-Boundary Phase Geometry as a possible mathematical language for the framework, with the explicit caveat that minimal TBPG is empirically equivalent to standard twistor / gauge / QED. The paper is paired with a companion predictive extension: "Null-Boundary Response: A No-Signaling-Preserving Predictive Extension of the Boundary-Defined Null Connection Framework" (Zhang 2026, TBD Zenodo DOI), which proposes a candidate predictive law that produces a no-signaling-preserving channel-antisymmetric correction to coincidence statistics, with a six-feature experimental fingerprint testable in a phase-scanned delayed-choice quantum eraser.
Single-photon interference and delayed-choice experiments resist any account that treats the photon as a localized object carrying a private classical history. We propose the boundary-defined null connection (BDNC) view: a photon event is a null spacetime relation completed jointly by emission and absorption, with observable behavior fixed by the complete experimental boundary. The null-relation primitive itself is not novel — it appears in Kastner's relativistic transactional interpretation, Sorkin's causal-set null-link program, and the all-at-once / TSVF / Fixed Point Formulation literature. The contribution is unifying language: BDNC compresses these into a single vocabulary and identifies one operational criterion — whether the boundary modifies only post-selected correlations or also unsorted marginals. The latter case, parameterized by a generic future-state weighting ansatz, amounts to no-signaling violation rather than a BDNC-specific law; we outline two marginal-stability protocols and one weak-measurement consistency check that would constrain such deviations. The principal claim is therefore a unifying diagnostic, not a new falsifiable prediction: any predictive version must derive a BDNC-specific functional form for the future-state weighting. §11 sketches Twistor-Boundary Phase Geometry as a possible mathematical language for the framework, with the explicit caveat that minimal TBPG is empirically equivalent to standard twistor / gauge / QED. The paper is paired with a companion predictive extension: "Null-Boundary Response: A No-Signaling-Preserving Predictive Extension of the Boundary-Defined Null Connection Framework" (Zhang 2026, TBD Zenodo DOI), which proposes a candidate predictive law that produces a no-signaling-preserving channel-antisymmetric correction to coincidence statistics, with a six-feature experimental fingerprint testable in a phase-scanned delayed-choice quantum eraser.
The boundary-defined null connection (BDNC) framework [Zhang 2026, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.20032379] identifies unsorted-marginal stability as the diagnostic location where any predictively distinct extension of standard quantum mechanics would have to depart, but stops short of supplying a BDNC-specific predictive law: a generic future-state weighting ansatz amounts to a no-signaling violation rather than a BDNC-specific signature. This paper supplies one candidate. We propose the *Null-Boundary Response* postulate: in experiments with multiple coherent null alternatives and a future absorber boundary that partitions the channels, the joint source-absorber probability differs from standard quantum mechanics by a small response term proportional to the boundary-sensitive imaginary coherence between alternatives, antisymmetric across complementary absorber channels. The antisymmetry forces Σ_m Δ P_m = 0 by construction, so no-signaling is preserved exactly: the NBR candidate predicts no raw marginal violation. The imaginary-coherence form Im[Psi_A* Psi_B] follows from a first-order expansion under the future-boundary-dependent path-dependent phase twist; the natural distinguishability window from the marker-induced reduction is W(D) = D√(1−D²), peaking at D = 1/√2. The experimental signature is a small in-quadrature phase-shift residual in the coincidence-difference fringe pattern of a phase-scanned delayed-choice quantum eraser, antisymmetric across complementary post-selection channels and invisible in the unsorted marginal. The signature carries a six-feature fingerprint that distinguishes it from generic no-signaling violation, ordinary decoherence, detector bias, and standard two-state-vector imaginary weak values; in particular, the weak-trace "past of a quantum particle" interpretation underlying recent TSVF demonstrations [Vaidman 2013; Aharonov-Cohen-Elitzur 2017] is itself contested [Hance-Rarity-Ladyman 2023; Vaidman 2023], and NBR's predictive content must be (and is) sharper than either position in that exchange. We sketch the experimental protocol, identify basis-calibration as the principal systematic (β = 0 throughout denotes the independently calibrated real post-selection basis), and discuss what would constitute genuine confirmation versus confounding. A realistic target statistical sensitivity at N ~ 10^8 pair detections is ε ~ 10^-4, contingent on systematics control. The framework is restricted to two-path single-photon experiments with binary or finitely-multinary future-absorber channels; the multi-photon and massive-particle extensions are out of scope.
This deposit contains the complete English translation of v1 (28 January 2026) of the preprint “Dualité onde-corpuscule, choix retardé et présentisme probabiliste”. Published French source and related work Published French v1: Zenodo 18404150 — DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18404150 Concept DOI for the French work: 10.5281/zenodo.18404149 Reference preprint on probabilistic presentism: 10.5281/zenodo.18207811 Scope. Wave–particle duality and delayed-choice experiments are often presented as if present choices could rewrite the past. This article develops an alternative reading within probabilistic presentism: only the present exists ontologically, while the future corresponds to a structured space of possibilities. Central distinction. The wave aspect describes a coherent structure of possibilities before actualization; the particle aspect describes a present fact in the form of a localized event. The “late choice” fixes the experimental context in which a fact becomes defined; it does not retroactively alter an already factual past. Experiments and constraints. The discussion covers Born's rule, interference, which-path information, decoherence, outcome uniqueness, no-signalling, the double slit, Wheeler's delayed choice, delayed-choice quantum erasers, and EPR/Bell correlations. Conditional interference patterns are treated as post-selected correlations and not as signals sent into the past. Status. This is a conceptual and exploratory preprint. Interpretive claims are identified as such, and the framework is not presented as an experimentally validated replacement for quantum mechanics. Translation fidelity. This English edition is a translation, not a revised scientific version. It preserves the argumentative structure, equations, references, links, limitations, and epistemic qualifications of the published French v1.
Abstract We advance the Information Boundary Principle (IBP): an event becomes irreversible when its informational content is recorded or irreversibly entangled with the environment, thereby fixing it within globally consistent boundary conditions across spacetime. In delayed‑choice quantum eraser experiments, correlations appear to allow future measurements to determine past behavior. We argue these results reveal a boundary‑value structure of quantum reality: histories are selected to satisfy both initial and final constraints, with inconsistency forbidden by the information boundary. We formalize the IBP using density‑matrix dynamics, decoherence, mutual information, and the Englert duality relation, derive observational consequences for eraser‑type experiments, and outline empirical tests capable of discriminating our view from competing interpretations. While fully consistent with special and general relativity, the IBP imposes an additional global constraint on their solution space. Einstein’s equations admit mathematically valid but unphysical spacetimes—tachyonic world‑lines, closed timelike curves, traversable wormholes sustained by exotic matter, and naked singularities. As energy conditions, quantum stability, and Hawking’s chronology‑protection principle already restrict many such solutions, the IBP further filters the admissible set by excluding any geometry that cannot maintain coherent, non‑contradictory informational records. Thus the IBP acts as an information‑theoretic selection rule layered over, not against, relativity’s geometry. Keywords: delayed choice; quantum eraser; decoherence; mutual information; causality; two‑state vector; information theory; relativity.
This work presents a unified, interpretive account of quantum interference and delayed-choice experiments that applies equally to photons and massive particles. Rather than invoking spacetime trajectories, wave–particle duality, retrocausality, or collapse postulates, the paper locates quantum interference in the coherent evolution of internal, pre-geometric degrees of freedom defined over classical spacetime. Within this framework, “which-path” questions are not merely unanswered but fundamentally ill-posed: interference arises from global coherence of an internal field subject to experimental boundary conditions, while spacetime itself remains single-valued and classical at laboratory scales. The approach reproduces all standard quantum-mechanical predictions without modification and is explicitly interpretive rather than predictive. A central result is a unified explanation of why interference occurs across disparate physical systems—photons, electrons, atoms, and molecules—while decoherence manifests through system-dependent physical mechanisms. Photons and massive particles differ in how internal coherence is lost (e.g., electromagnetic absorption versus collisional and thermal interactions), but not in the underlying principle. Delayed-choice experiments are reinterpreted without paradox: changes to the apparatus modify boundary conditions for the internal field rather than retroactively altering particle histories. By removing spacetime paths from the fundamental ontology, the framework offers a consistent, path-free account of interference, decoherence, and localized detection that preserves the empirical success of quantum mechanics while clarifying its conceptual foundations.
Abstract: I propose a discrete-time ("frame-rate"/FPS) interpretation of quantum measurement where the universe updates in global, discrete ticks of duration Delta t. Within each tick, the global quantum state evolves unitarily and measurement outcomes are logged; joint probabilities are evaluated at the end of the tick. This reproduces standard quantum predictions for delayed-choice and quantum eraser experiments: single-detector (marginal) statistics remain non-interfering, while conditional coincidences display complementary interference patterns after erasing which-path information. No signaling or real retrocausation occurs; correlations are fixed by the global update that closes a tick. The framework becomes empirically distinct from standard quantum mechanics only if a finite tick Delta t* induces a small, distance- or delay-dependent reduction of interference visibility. I outline falsifiable consequences and a satellite-scale delayed-choice/eraser experiment.
This theoretical note develops an event-admissibility criterion for photon detection within Constrained Null Geometry (CNG). The central distinction is between the Born weight of a decohered channel and the geometric admissibility of that channel as a realized event. In the standard post-decoherence reading, diagonal channels are normally treated as directly eligible event outcomes. This paper inserts an additional CNG closure layer: a null channel can become a detected photon event only if its transported boundary data closes into a timelike boundary record. When all decohered channels are closure-admissible, the ordinary Born rule is recovered. When some channels fail closure, the physical event probabilities are restricted to, or dynamically transported into, the closure-admissible event subspace. The note formulates both a conditional projection rule and a stronger trace-preserving closure-flow realization. The latter gives a possible experimental discriminator: weak-channel dominance without coherent interference and without proportional loss of total event rate. This distinguishes CNG event closure from ordinary interference, optical filtering, detector loss, or post-selection. The paper is theoretical. No laboratory claim is made. Its purpose is to formulate a precise post-decoherence event-closure criterion, derive the corresponding mathematical consequences, and identify a measurable discriminator for future optical tests. The accompanying reproducibility supplement contains Python scripts, generated data, summaries, and figures for the numerical closure-discriminator scans used in the paper.