12 Emission–Absorption Synergy of “Engineered Vacuum” in Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics

Home ／ Appendix-Prediction and Falsification

This chapter follows the publication template for the falsification program. It uses plain language, avoids equations, and keeps the structure fixed. For general readers: cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) studies how boundaries and modes reshape light–matter interactions. Here we test whether the “engineered vacuum” claimed by Energy Filament Theory (EFT) leaves a coordinated imprint on both emission and absorption.

I. One-Sentence Goal

Track emission and absorption simultaneously across multiple cavity quantum electrodynamics platforms to test the “engineered vacuum” claim: when we controllably alter boundaries, impedance, or modal density, spontaneous emission/fluorescence/scattering (emission channel) and linewidth/line area/saturation behavior (absorption channel) should move in the same direction, as pre-registered, and show zero-lag co-occurrence in conjugate frequency bands consistent with near energy balance. If this synergy replicates after normalization across platforms, geometries, and carrier frequencies, varies monotonically with environment parameters (impedance, quality factor, coupling strength), and remains broadly band-insensitive, it supports the claim. If heat, gain, or pump crosstalk can explain the data, or if synergy is absent, the claim is disfavored.

II. What to Measure

• Emission-channel response: With pump and sampling held fixed, grade lifetime/throughput into baseline and uplift segments (text grades), and check whether short-time clustering/zero-lag co-occurrence strengthens or weakens monotonically with environment parameters.
• Absorption-channel response: Record linewidth, line shape, integrated area, and saturation knee as up/down shifts and broadening/narrowing (text intervals). Test directional agreement and temporal alignment with the emission channel.
• Degree of emission–absorption synergy: In the same epoch and configuration, compare directional match, amplitude ranking, and conjugate-band pairing (for example, stable ratios of enhancement on one side and suppression on the other). Look for a zero-lag co-occurrence peak.
• Environment and geometry monotonicity: Across high-impedance/high-quality-factor (Q)/strong-coupling versus low-impedance/low-quality-factor/weak-coupling, test whether synergy strength, threshold, and slope shift in the pre-registered direction; verify the same trend for small/large mode volumes and narrow/wide bandwidth geometries.
• Frequency-independent normalized overlap: Re-plot responses versus an environment proxy on the x-axis and normalized strength on the y-axis (text normalization for noise floor/coupling/window). Curves from different carriers and platforms should overlap within uncertainty; if they flip or rescale with frequency, treat them as medium/chain effects rather than engineered vacuum.

III. How to Do It

1. Platforms and device families:
   • Superconducting microwaves: artificial atoms in 1D/2D cavities with tunable coupling, impedance, and cavity length.
   • Atomic/ionic cavities: cold-atom or ion ensembles in microcavities with controlled length and mirror reflectivity.
   • Photonic-crystal/nano-cavities: quantum dots or color centers coupled to nanoscale cavities with tunable mode volume and output ports.
   • Spin–cavity hybrids: solid-state spin systems in re-entrant or dielectric cavities with tunable filling and placement.
     Define, per platform, an environment proxy (for example, impedance tier, quality-factor tier, effective coupling tier) and a normalized-strength convention as shared axes for cross-platform plots.
2. Pre-registration and blinded collaboration:
   • Environment team (forward): without access to spectra or time series, use geometry and environment proxies to issue a text prediction card per setting: direction (up/down), strength tier (strong/medium/weak) for emission and absorption, and whether conjugate pairing and zero-lag co-occurrence are expected.
   • Observation team (independent dual chains):
     1. Emission chain: fixed pump and sampling windows; report lifetime/flux and short-time co-occurrence as text grades.
     2. Absorption chain: standardized scans and power calibration; report linewidth/area/saturation knee as text grades.
        Chains share only device IDs, environment-proxy labels, and epoch labels, not results.
   • Correlation team (conjugate bands): measure zero-lag versus side-lobe contrasts and grade strong/medium/weak, checking directional agreement with emission–absorption trends.
   • Arbitration: a third party scores directional match, amplitude ranking, normalized overlap, and zero-lag co-occurrence, stratified by platform/device/institution.

IV. Positive/Negative Controls and Removal of Artifacts

1. Positive controls:
   • Raising impedance or quality factor yields co-moving changes in lifetime/flux and linewidth/area, and zero-lag co-occurrence emerges in conjugate bands, strengthening with environment level.
   • After normalization, cross-platform/cross-carrier curves overlap within uncertainty and shift predictably with coupling adjustments.
2. Negative controls:
   • Off-resonance/decoupled/pump-off conditions drive both channels to the noise floor; conjugate pairing and zero-lag co-occurrence vanish.
   • Injected pump leakage/local-oscillator crosstalk make correlation peaks track instrument state and fail cross-platform replication.
   • Heating/power broadening that reproduces intensity uplift without simultaneous absorption-shape synergy and zero-lag co-occurrence is flagged as a thermal/power-broadening impostor.

V. Systematics and Safeguards (Three Items)

• Power broadening and heating: can fake linewidth changes and intensity rise. Safeguard: low-duty scans, temperature logs, extrapolation to low-power consistency, and tiered reporting of effective noise floor.
• Cavity-mode drift and pulling: can misalign normalized curves. Safeguard: frequency locking and reference-cavity bracketing; grade quality factor and center frequency over time and remove their influence in analysis.
• Detector saturation and crosstalk: can create false synergy. Safeguard: linear-regime checks, cross-attenuation/isolation tests, and detector-order swaps; discard cases where synergy disappears under order swaps.

VI. Execution and Transparency

Pre-register environment-proxy definitions, normalization rules, prediction-card schema, scoring, and exclusion criteria. Keep hold-out settings/devices on each platform for final confirmation. Exchange raw data and scripts across institutions for independent reprocessing. Publicly release prediction cards, environment/temperature logs, emission/absorption grade tables, zero-lag summaries, and key intermediate artifacts. This chapter forms a closed loop with the chapters on tunneling pore statistics and zero-lag correlations, Dynamic Casimir post-threshold nonlinearity, and steady-state Schwinger crossings; cross-references are required.

VII. Pass/Fail Criteria

1. Support (passes):
   • In two or more platform classes and two or more institutions, emission and absorption show directional agreement with stable amplitude ranking versus the environment proxy.
   • Zero-lag co-occurrence appears in conjugate bands and changes monotonically with the environment proxy.
   • In normalized coordinates, cross-platform/cross-carrier curves overlap and tune as pre-registered with impedance/quality factor/coupling.
   • Signals fade in negative controls and resist reproduction by heat/gain/crosstalk.
2. Refutation (fails):
   • Emission and absorption move in opposite directions or show no synergy, or synergy appears only in one pipeline or device.
   • Zero-lag co-occurrence follows pump/local-oscillator state, or persists under decoupled/off-resonance/heated controls.
   • Normalized curves fail to overlap, or frequency-dependent flips/rescalings indicate a medium/chain origin rather than engineered vacuum.
   • Target–control and environment-gradient differences are insignificant.