Knot-Topological Model of Neutron Decay: Theoretical Framework, Holographic Corrections, and Testable Predictions

The 20-year neutron lifetime anomaly-an 8.3 s discrepancy between bottle (879.4 ± 0.6 s) and beam (887.7 ± 2.0 s) measurement methods, remains unresolved in nuclear physics. We propose that this discrepancy arises from neutrons occupying five topologically distinct eigenstate configurations corresponding to figure-8 knot embeddings derived from the Jones polynomial. We develop a complete theoretical framework incorporating: π-encoded decay suppression from topological state wavefunctions (70% reduction in excited state decay rates), holographic ER=EPR corrections (0.2-0.8% entropy-driven lifetime modifications), and (3) Boltzmann thermal population distributions explaining why beam experiments measure longer average lifetimes. A 3qubit quantum circuit implementation on IBM Torino (Job ID: d5il5hspe0pc73ankrg0) validates the model's mathematical self-consistency: predicted excited state population 44.8% vs. observed 45.4% (0.6% agreement). The predicted beam lifetime (886.1 s) matches the experimental value (887.7 ± 2.0 s) within 0.80σ. We articulate three experimentally testable predictions requiring no new physics: (1) energy-dependent lifetime variation in existing NIST bottle data, (2) spin-polarization asymmetry in dedicated beam experiments, and (3) oscillatory modulation in precision electron spectroscopy. This work demonstrates quantum computers as mathematical validators for exotic particle physics hypotheses and provides a concrete pathway from computational consistency to empirical validation.