Hadrons, Confinement, Mass, and Entropy A Phase-Compatibility Interpretation of QCD Hadronization

This paper examines the relationship between quantum chromodynamics (QCD), confinement, hadronization, hadronic mass, and entropy through a limited Phase Compatibility Theory (PCT) interpretation. Within established QCD, quark and gluon configurations evolve non-perturbatively into observable colour-singlet hadrons. Hadronization changes the effective degrees of freedom and the appropriate level of physical description, while the mass of ordinary hadrons arises predominantly from QCD field energy, interactions, quark and gluon dynamics, and the QCD trace anomaly rather than from bare quark masses alone. The paper considers entropy across both partonic and hadronic regimes, emphasizing that its interpretation depends on the selected ensemble, subsystem, accessible variables, and degree of coarse-graining. Hadronization is therefore treated not as the point at which entropy begins, but as a transition in how microscopic correlations, energy, multiplicity, and observable outcomes are organized and described. Phase Compatibility Theory is introduced only as an ontological interpretation of persistent organization, constrained accessibility, and colour-neutral resolution. The established quantitative account remains that of QCD. Hadrons are interpreted as persistent resolved organizations through which underlying quark, gluon, and colour-field relationships become experimentally registered as distinguishable composite particle states. The paper establishes a disciplined conceptual correspondence between PCT and QCD without proposing that PCT replaces the Standard Model or independently derives confinement, hadron spectra, fragmentation functions, or entropy production.