ZIP Cosmology: Emergent Spacetime from Informational Coherence

ZIP Cosmology proposes an alternative cosmological framework in which space and time are not fundamental entities, but emergent manifestations of long-term stable informational coherence. The central object of the theory is the coherence field K, whose stable phase (ZIP – Zero Information Phase) defines the domain within which particles, fields, and causal structure can exist. Within this framework, cosmic expansion is not interpreted as the expansion of space itself, but as the propagation of a coherent phase into a non-coherent energetic domain. Phenomena commonly attributed to dark matter and dark energy arise from gradients and global relaxation dynamics of coherence, rather than from undiscovered particles or additional fundamental fields. ZIP Cosmology offers a natural interpretation of cosmic microwave background anomalies, including low-multipole suppression and hemispherical asymmetry, as fossil imprints of the coherence boundary. The framework reproduces the large-scale empirical successes of standard cosmology without invoking inflation, particle dark matter, or modifications of gravity. The theory is explicitly falsifiable and makes concrete, testable predictions, including: • the presence of directional memory in large-scale CMB polarization, • a universal galactic rotation curve profile, • smooth gravitational lensing without subhalo structure, • the absence of any detectable particle dark matter candidate. If supported, ZIP Cosmology implies a profound conceptual shift: the universe is not a collection of objects embedded in spacetime, but a relationally coherent structure from which spacetime itself emerges.