Procedural Vacuum Breakdown (PVB): A Literature-Synthesized State-Machine Model of Emergent Spacetime

Abstract

We present Procedural Vacuum Breakdown (PVB) as a literature-synthesized reformulation of emergent spacetime in which a single scalar density field A(x) - the local admissibility density of future-consistent micro-updates on a discrete causal substrate - is promoted to the primitive coarse-grained variable. The substrate is modeled as a locally finite directed acyclic graph (DAG) whose causal order fixes the conformal class of an emergent Lorentzian metric (via Malament-type correspondence), while the volume element is fixed directly by A(x). We construct a constrained effective action in which admissibility locking enters as a variational constraint, yielding modified Einstein-like field equations with an explicit trace-pressure reaction term that encodes routing bottlenecks. We state the closure conditions required for consistency, including Bianchi-identity compatibility (a divergence-free total source term), and interpret matter sectors as stable topological defects of the routing graph. The framework is organized around explicit falsifiability: we provide a verification ladder (numerical causal-set tests and continuum-limit consistency checks) and kill-criteria that rule out the model under specific observational or simulation outcomes.

Keywords