Q Quantum Theory is formulated here at the foundational and quantum-mechanical level. Its basic postulate is that the physical quantum entity, denoted by Q, is the whole quantum state rather than an independently real material point whose unknown position is described by a secondary probability cloud. In a one-Q sector admitting a local amplitude representation,\begin{equation} Q(x)=\sqrt{\rho(x)}\,e^{i\theta(x)}Z(x),\end{equation}where $x$ is a spacetime point, $\rho$ is the Born response weight, $\theta$ is the phase, and $Z$ is a normalized internal structural direction. A dagger denotes the Hermitian adjoint and $\partial_\mu$ differentiates with respect to $x^\mu$. The decomposition has a local rephasing redundancy. This is a redundancy of the local factorization of the complete Q amplitude, not the physical electromagnetic $U(1)$ gauge symmetry. The associated decomposition-invariant phase-orientation one-form is\begin{equation} \kappa_\mu=\partial_\mu\theta-iZ^\dagger\partial_\mu Z =\frac{\operatorname{Im}\langle Q,\partial_\mu Q\rangle}{\rho}, \qquad \rho>0.\end{equation}In Schr\"odinger correspondence sectors this structure yields exact probability-current and momentum identities, including the standard Abelian gauge-covariant current. In that audit the electromagnetic connection is a correspondence variable; its Q-level interpretation as a local representation of inter-Q relational comparison geometry is developed in the companion manuscript Paper II-A. Klein-Gordon and Dirac audits show that relativistic currents and stress-energy depend on the Lorentz representation: $\kappa_\mu$ carries phase-orientation translation structure, while amplitude gradients and internal orientation can contribute independently to energy and stress. The standard Hilbert-space probability calculus is retained. Interference, tunnelling, entanglement, localized detection and cloud-chamber tracks are interpreted as properties or records of whole-Q states rather than as evidence for hidden point trajectories. Entanglement is represented by a nonfactorizable joint Q state; standard Bell correlations and no-signalling are retained without identifying correlation with a superluminal physical signal. Boundaryless state support is distinguished from the propagation of a newly generated disturbance, which is required to obey retarded relativistic causality. For stable relativistic sectors, invariant mass is treated as a derived characterization of the translation spectrum: timelike Q states possess a rest frame and rest energy, whereas null Q states do not. The foundational structure does not specify a unique interaction action or establish ultraviolet finiteness. Finite-response dynamics requires a separate construction.
Q Quantum Theory is formulated here at the foundational and quantum-mechanical level. Its basic postulate is that the physical quantum entity, denoted by Q, is the whole quantum state rather than an independently real material point whose unknown position is described by a secondary probability cloud. In a one-Q sector admitting a local amplitude representation,\begin{equation} Q(x)=\sqrt{\rho(x)},e^{i\theta(x)}Z(x),\end{equation}where x is a spacetime point, ρ is the Born response weight, θ is the phase, and Z is a normalized internal structural direction. A dagger denotes the Hermitian adjoint and ∂μ differentiates with respect to xμ. The decomposition has a local rephasing redundancy. This is a redundancy of the local factorization of the complete Q amplitude, not the physical electromagnetic U(1) gauge symmetry. The associated decomposition-invariant phase-orientation one-form is\begin{equation} \kappa_\mu=\partial_\mu\theta-iZ^\dagger\partial_\mu Z =\frac{\operatorname{Im}\langle Q,\partial_\mu Q\rangle}{\rho}, \qquad \rho>0.\end{equation}In Schr"odinger correspondence sectors this structure yields exact probability-current and momentum identities, including the standard Abelian gauge-covariant current. In that audit the electromagnetic connection is a correspondence variable; its Q-level interpretation as a local representation of inter-Q relational comparison geometry is developed in the companion manuscript Paper II-A. Klein-Gordon and Dirac audits show that relativistic currents and stress-energy depend on the Lorentz representation: κμ carries phase-orientation translation structure, while amplitude gradients and internal orientation can contribute independently to energy and stress. The standard Hilbert-space probability calculus is retained. Interference, tunnelling, entanglement, localized detection and cloud-chamber tracks are interpreted as properties or records of whole-Q states rather than as evidence for hidden point trajectories. Entanglement is represented by a nonfactorizable joint Q state; standard Bell correlations and no-signalling are retained without identifying correlation with a superluminal physical signal. Boundaryless state support is distinguished from the propagation of a newly generated disturbance, which is required to obey retarded relativistic causality. For stable relativistic sectors, invariant mass is treated as a derived characterization of the translation spectrum: timelike Q states possess a rest frame and rest energy, whereas null Q states do not. The foundational structure does not specify a unique interaction action or establish ultraviolet finiteness. Finite-response dynamics requires a separate construction.
Quantum theory is the soul of contemporary physics. It was discovered in an adventurous way, under the urge to solve the puzzles posed by atomic spectra and blackbody radiation. But after its invention, it immediately became clear that it was not just a theory of specific physical systems: it was rather a new language of universal applicability. Already in 1928, the theory had received solid mathematical foundations by Hilbert, von Neumann, and Nordheim, and this work was brought to completion in the monumental work of von Neumann, in the form that we still study nowadays. The theory is extraordinarily successful, and its predictions have been confirmed to an astonishing level of precision in a large spectrum of experiments. However, almost 90 years after von Neumann's book, quantum theory remains mysterious. Its mathematical formulation – based on Hilbert spaces and self-adjoint operators – is far from having an intuitive interpretation. The association of physical systems to Hilbert spaces whose unit vectors represent pure states, the representation of transformations by unitary operators and of observables by self-adjoint operators – all such postulates look artificial and ad hoc . A slightly more operational approach is provided by the C * -algebraic formulation of quantum theory – still, this formulation relies on the assumption that observables form an algebra , where the physical meanings of the multiplication and the sum are far from clear. In short, the postulates of quantum theory impose mathematical structures without providing any simple reason for this choice: the mathematics of Hilbert spaces is adopted as a magic blackbox that “works well” at producing experimental predictions. However, in a satisfactory axiomatization of a physical theory the mathematical structures should emerge as a consequence of postulates that have a direct physical interpretation. By this we mean postulates referring, e.g., to primitive notions like physical system, measurement, or process, rather than notions like, e.g., Hilbert space, C * -algebra, unit vector, or selfadjoint operator. The crucial question thus remains unanswered: why quantum theory? Which are the principles at the basis of the theory? A case that is often invoked in contrast is that of Special Relativity theory, which directly follows from the simple understandable principle of relativity.
We reconstruct nonrelativistic quantum mechanics from exactly three physical axioms: microscopic ontic definiteness and finite localization, physical reality of the spacetime-vacuum substrate, and persistent causal source–response coupling. The single-run physical state is a finite topological core, its actual causal history, the substrate state, its sector, and the associated historical disturbance. A wave function is not identified with that ontic tuple. It is a ray in a Hilbert representation of admissible preparations and response amplitudes; a density operator is a statistical or reduced representation; and a record is a stable macroscopic event. The logical construction is acyclic. Finite-energy sector spaces and their continuous symmetry representations lead, under explicit representation conditions, to a complex Hilbert direct sum. A closed semibounded quadratic form defines the Hamiltonian and its self-adjoint realization. The standard Schrödinger action, unitary propagation, probability current, spectral observables, uncertainty relations, composite-system tensor products, spin representations, exchange sectors, instruments, and completely positive open dynamics then follow on their declared domains. Gleason-type reasoning fixes the Born form only after additivity, noncontextuality, continuity, and preparation–detector calibration are stated. Those operational conditions are not hidden physical axioms. The distribution of unresolved ontic initial data that realizes quantum equilibrium remains a realization certificate, not a theorem of topology alone. The Heisenberg representation is derived as a controlled transport of observables after Hilbert space and the self-adjoint generator have been constructed. Strongly continuous time translation, two-parameter nonautonomous propagation, common-domain Heisenberg equations, spectral matrix mechanics, regular Weyl relations, open-system adjoints, and instrument effects are connected by one certificate. Schrödinger and Heisenberg predictions are proved equivalent for one-time and finite instrument records, while finite-core, historical, truncation, domain, and detector errors remain separately bounded. Three frozen matrix benchmarks verify low-energy oscillator truncation and its state-weighted CCR defect, second-order unitary convergence for a driven doublet, Schrödinger–Heisenberg equality for a sequential instrument, finite auxiliary-history truncation, and quadratic leakage scaling for a conditional Dirac–Pauli interface. Independent reproduction, including the extended-precision audit, is closed for the frozen packet; physical coefficient calibration remains open. The next interface connects an owner-resolved Dirac–Pauli Hamiltonian to spin records through a Ward-compatible vertex, a causal passive history kernel, an independently audited doublet projection, SPAM-aware forward probabilities, nuisance-profiled identifiability, and a noncompensatory coefficient-to-record error theorem. The DPHC identifiability coordinate is executed on a frozen synthetic response family. A single-scale design is rank deficient, whereas an eighteen-setting frequency–gradient–order–time design has full profiled rank, controlled conditioning, near-nominal finite-sample coverage, and a calibrated held-out statistic. A robust twenty-setting design raises the worst registered information eigenvalue by 20.12%. A ten-parameter nonlinear audit exhibits an exact radiative–detector equivalence curve. An independent dark record breaks that symmetry and restores full local rank. Continuous-set robustness, validated global exclusion, and independent implementation are executed, while physical response identification and empirical calibration remain open. Measurement is treated as a dynamics of system, apparatus, environment, and actual history. Unitary premeasurement and decoherence select robust record sectors but do not by themselves select one record. The three-axiom ontology supplies one actual branch history, while a measurable response map from the complete initial state and instrument to the final record supplies the missing dynamical content. Bell correlations require contextual and nonfactorizable ontic response while parameter independence and operational no-signalling are retained; no controllable superluminal channel is introduced. Historical response produces causal non-Markov Hamiltonians and memory-kernel master equations. Their normalization, positivity, complete positivity, and energy ledger are derived from a unitary enlarged realization whenever such a dilation exists. Finite-core form factors and causal memory yield explicit departures from point-core Markov quantum mechanics. Standard quantum mechanics is recovered as the unresolved-core, sector-fixed, quantum-equilibrium, short-memory limit. Quantum field theory is retained as a successful local, spectral, and asymptotic calculus, but field operators, Fock vectors, and vacuum functionals remain effective representations until a noncircular map from finite carriers and their complete causal histories has been certified. The manuscript proves a sequence of previously open analytic, mathematical, measurement, topological, statistical, and computational obligations on explicitly declared domains. These include non-Markov diffusion, graph-norm stability, distorted-wave and pole variation, finite passive-memory realization, Fisher-information identifiability, detector pushforwards, unique-record basins, Born-representation bounds, measurement independence, topology–Dirac charge conjugation, Stern–Gerlach records, action-scale matching, rank-two spin projection, Finkelstein–Rubinstein topology, Clifford reconstruction, and parent-to-record realization maps. Eighteen groups of numerical obligations are executed on frozen reference models. They cover spectral and scattering calculations, oscillator and two-level dynamics, Schrödinger–Heisenberg equivalence, finite-history truncation, Dirac–Pauli and Foldy–Wouthuysen reduction, gauge covariance, interference, Bell and GHZ correlations, open-system memory, Stern–Gerlach records, identifiability, global searches, topological invariants, path products, semiclassical limits, partial-wave optical closure, the relativistic/QFT interface, and conservative-parent two-level dynamics. Every environment explicitly typed as a computational obligation now has an executed frozen-model certificate; empirical identification and separately typed experimental inputs remain open. The present manuscript differs so substantially from the earlier version in scope, logical architecture, proofs, and executable certificates that it is issued as a new upload rather than as a minor revision. Because the subject is both foundational and technically consequential, readers professionally engaged in quantum foundations, mathematical physics, quantum measurement, or related fields are encouraged to consult both versions: the earlier version preserves the developmental route, whereas the present version gives the substantially expanded and reorganized reconstruction. ## Keywords Axiomatic quantum mechanics; finite particle histories; retarded Green functions; Schrödinger equation; Dirac equation; Born rule; topological spin; quantum measurement; non-Markovian dynamics; classical limit.
Null-Directional Kinematics (NDK) begins with a statistical ensemble of invariant-speed propagation directions rather than massive particle trajectories as primitive. Previous work showed that a small set of compositional axioms uniquely selects the Bhattacharyya coefficient as a statistical clock affinity and that its binary reversal sector reproduces the Lorentz clock factor. A companion closure result further showed that this statistical clock law, together with the inertial and null-direction structural inputs of NDK, closes the kinematic sector to the proper orthochronous Lorentz group. A subsequent construction connected the local geometry of the same statistical structure to nonrelativistic Schrödinger dynamics. The present paper asks a stronger question. Can the clock sector itself constrain a relativistic quantum dynamics? It is shown that the invariant proper occupation associated with the null-direction current is exactly the extensive form of the same Bhattacharyya overlap that defines the NDK clock. Within the local, derivative-free class of Lorentz-scalar transport actions that are extensive in occupation, this proper occupation fixes the free clock action up to the normalization of the inertial mass. Its exact quadratic auxiliary representation introduces a positive scalar density q that classically coincides with the proper occupation. The clock action then fixes the phase block of the local (q,S) geometry, while compatibility with the inherited density-phase two-form uniquely fixes the reciprocal Fisher density block within the stated local symmetry class. The natural complex coordinate Ψ=qeiS/κ and the linear Klein-Gordon equation are not assumed separately. Within that class, they follow from the inherited density–phase geometry. The quantum correction enters through the relationn=qmM,where M is the local invariant mass parameter, relating proper occupation to amplitude density while leaving the kinematic NDK clock ratio unchanged. Its nonrelativistic limit recovers the previously obtained Madelung-Fisher structure, while its first relativistic correction has the standard scalar mass-velocity coefficient. With standard external electromagnetic minimal coupling, the theory also reproduces the exact Klein-Gordon Coulomb spectrum. The Klein-Gordon equation, Fisher geometry, and auxiliary-field methods are established results and are not claimed as new. The proposed foundations result is the chain connecting a uniquely selected null-direction clock overlap to a relativistic scalar quantum dynamics. In this construction, the relativistic clock does more than share a statistical representation with quantum mechanics. It helps determine the form of the relativistic quantum transport theory.
Quantum mechanics is our most successful physical theory. It underlies our very detailed understanding of atomic physics, chemistry, and nuclear physics, and the many technologies to which physical systems in these regimes give rise. Additionally, relativistic quantum mechanics is the basis for the standard model of elementary particles, which very successfully gives a partial unification of the forces operating at the atomic, nuclear, and subnuclear levels. However, from its inception the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, and the fact that “quantum measurements” in the orthodox formulation appear to require the intervention of non-quantum mechanical “classical systems,” have led to speculations by many physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers of science that quantum mechanics may be incomplete. Among the Founding Fathers of quantum theory, Einstein and Schrödinger were both of the opinion that quantum mechanics is in some way unsatisfactory, and this view has been amplified in more recent profound work of John Bell, among others. In an opposing camp, many others in the physics, mathematics, and philosophy communities have attempted to provide an interpretational foundation in which quantum mechanics remains a complete and self-contained system. Among the Founding Fathers, Bohr, Born, and Heisenberg maintained that quantum mechanics is a complete system, and a number of recent proposals have been made to improve upon or to provide alternatives to their “Copenhagen Interpretation.” The debate continues, and has spawned an enormous literature.
This paper develops a framework-relative ontology of determinacy. Its core question is not what the world is made of, but what must minimally be accounted for if a stable deter- minate identity is internally self-representing. The primitive and functional core of Version 3.8 is retained: Being, the possibility of distinction, and domain-relative realizability define the sparse primitive basis; coherent self-representation then requires three non-equivalent func- tional questions—Support, Internal Encoding, and Correspondence. Explicit finite witness pairs establish uniform non-determination of each role from the other two in the unrestricted baseline class, while stronger canonical or equivariant subclasses remain open. Version 4.1.1 is a corrective consolidation of Version 4.1 rather than a new upstream on- tology step. It retains the Version 4.0 bridge revision and the Version 4.1 constructional layer. That layer adds the reverse evaluative direction Physics ⇒ Mathematics ⇒ Ontology and records where downstream structures constrain, but do not retroactively constitute, the ontol- ogy. Several previous bridge claims are weakened or rejected. Symmetry classification, tensor factorization, entanglement of a state, and path-dependent dynamics are kept as four distinct mathematical layers. A conditional expectation is treated as a localization map rather than as actualization; a branch instrument defines possible conditional events but does not select one realized branch; and a projection onto admissible spectral sectors is not called conservative dynamics without an independently derived dilation. The causal and propagation bridge is sharpened in two directions. First, a previous can- didate definition of a null relation by vanishing accumulated interval volume is proved degen- erate: every comparable pair admits a chain of links, so that criterion vanishes throughout the causal order. Link ensembles remain useful near-null approximants, but the null sector is therefore a limiting or measure-relative object rather than a pair-local primitive in the de- clared causal-set model. Second, the long-range free-chain calculation at 𝛼 = 2 is separated into two non-commuting limits. The infinite-range spectral symbol has maximal group veloc- ity 𝜋𝐽𝑎, whereas the envelope of finite-cutoff maxima tends to 2𝐽𝑎 Si(𝜋). These are spectral group-velocity statements; a causal signal cone still requires separate Lieb–Robinson-type hy- potheses. Isotropy and a unique physical Lorentz cone remain open. The defect bridge is updated with the completed 𝐾 = 512 data layer of the frozen ratio campaign. All 903 prescribed values of 𝜃 are present with eight branches each; 897 aggregate points are admissible and six lie in a short rejected interval. Neither √ 2 nor 𝜙 is a local or global minimum. The original preregistered primary ratio test nevertheless remains non- evaluable because its 𝐾 = 64 training gate is universally degenerate. Thus 𝐾 = 512 completes a characterization block; it does not retrospectively repair the primary estimator. Provenance registration and cross-platform verification remain pending. Version 4.0 turned Test 28A into an explicit reconstruction audit, and Version 4.1 retains that audit unchanged. For the standard three one-body extractions on ℋ = (C 3 ) ⊗3 , the combined linear map has exact rank 25 and kernel dimension 704. The hidden space splits as 192 two-body plus 512 fully traceless three-body directions; even the full 𝑆3-invariant class retains an exact 156-dimensional hidden sector. The preregistered continuation identifies an exact energy-selected fixed point, the totally antisymmetric state |𝜀⟩, while holonomy and variance objectives yield set-valued argmin correspondences. The historical non-triviality gate is therefore preserved but shown not to be a universal criterion, and no retroactive 𝑉28.4 verdict is declared. A prospectively frozen two-local QPH family provides an exact computer-assisted existence witness: its cycle-phase differential has rank 704/704 on the marginal kernel for the primary family and two preregistered replications, so marginals plus relational cycle phases are locally in- formationally complete in the fixed regularity stratum. Canonical modular-mismatch selectors are then audited rather than assumed. Identical additive qutrit references and every single pure mismatch under exact 𝑆3 protection obey strict capacity/rank no-go bounds. On the protected 156-dimensional domain a physically generated mixed mismatch has sufficient raw capacity but standard phase-only QPH remains incomplete. Exact cumulant analysis explains why order three is the natural next layer: the 𝑆3-hidden sector decomposes as 156 = 36 + 120, and the third connected cumulant is a complete affine coordinate on fibres of fixed proper marginals. A historical preregistered cubic-moment completion is retained only as a delicate T-NUM wit- ness, not as a theorem premise. This is the declared stopping point of the arity/cubic line: selecting one specific cubic observable would require a new independent physical law. Test 28B remains suspended. Version 4.0 added one further macro-level correction, retained in Version 4.1. Causal and conformal structure, transport geometry, stable matter sectors, and quantum correlations are treated as parallel downstream representations of one substrate model, not as a serial matter– space–time chain. A proposed identification of the matter admissibility projector Πadm with spacetime volume is rejected in its literal form: the projector is matter-branch specific, need not be nested under generative updates, and has no canonical finite trace in a type-III con- tinuum. In its place a conditional causal–transport conformal closure theorem is proved. If a causal reconstruction supplies a Lorentzian conformal class and an independent transport limit supplies a positive spatial metric on the same spacelike distribution, the conformal factor is fixed pointwise exactly when the two induced spatial metrics are conformally compatible. A scale-free generalized-eigenvalue defect provides a direct falsifier. The corresponding clock– cone–matter gate is also corrected by conformal weight: frequencies and dimensionful spectral scales have lapse weight one under a pure lapse deformation, whereas spectral ratios, localiza- tion fractions, and dimensionless stability-window coordinates have weight zero. A Tolman– thermal-time comparison is retained only as a relative lapse-profile gate; absolute time units remain open. Version 4.1 introduced a controlled common-substrate realization. Version 4.1.1 corrects its scope: parity alone excludes only an odd or linear mass/source identification with the same signed coordinate; an even law such as 𝑀 ∝ 𝑑 2 is not excluded by parity. On the declared graph Klein–Gordon sector, charge conjugation reverses Noether/gauge-current orientation while leaving mode energy and localization intensity unchanged. A grounded-graph Green- kernel theorem fixes the spatial uniformity of the cross-term sign, while the Coulomb sign itself is conditional on realizing a non-dynamical 𝐴0-type constraint sector; the same kernel in a dynamical scalar sector gives the opposite sign. A separate no-go proves that matter Dirichlet energy alone cannot select a nontrivial interior geometry. A state-selected positive geometry Hessian yields the conditional linear response 𝑦 = 𝐾 −1 𝐸 𝜏 , so weak 𝐶-even stress sources add while 𝐶-odd currents can cancel. The principal new bridge is a conditional stationary common causal–transport–matter con- struction. If one protected center supplies a common base, the transport branch supplies a positive spatial metric ℎ, and several modular/physical clocks agree on one relative lapse 𝑁, then 𝑔CTM = −𝑐 2 *𝑁2𝑑𝑇2 + ℎ has one timelike sign, predicts the same null front for all canonically normalized matter sectors, and fixes its stationary volume element without an additional scalar measure. Different masses and opposite 𝑈(1) representation weights remain lower-order data and do not alter the characteristic cone. The independently reconstructed HSMI conformal class remains a held-out test rather than an input to this construction. A second independent Version 4.1 result supplies a conditional physical law selecting com- plex rank two. A nonzero-Chern line cannot be closed under conjugation at rank one on 𝑆 2 , whereas 𝐿 ⊕ 𝐿¯ is the minimal conjugation-closed carrier; independently, ClC 2 ≃ 𝑀2(C) has minimal irreducible complex module dimension two. The existing odd-Chern defect-link con struction realizes this pair. If its Clifford algebra is physically admissible, the local carrier has 𝑀2(C) qubit kinematics. This is not an assertion that opposite electric charges form a coherent qubit, nor that every particle is a qubit. The resulting Version 4.1.1 is a constrained foundational proposal with a frozen primitive core, stronger positive and negative bridge results, a first common stationary geometry can- didate, an independently motivated minimal rank-two carrier, and a reproducibility-oriented ledger for every step from ontological determinacy toward physics. It also makes the external spin-sign, soft-graviton, equivalence-principle, and mass-budget inputs explicit without treat- ing them as evidence for the ontology.