CHC-BH-VP2 Surface-Commit Return Suppression: A Bounded Public Literature-Summary Support Audit of Black-Hole Candidates and Neutron-Star X-ray Transients

The CHC black-hole papers interpret horizons as accessibility boundaries rather than information-annihilating material surfaces. The present note converts that interpretation into a narrow audit analysis. In the CHC reading, light is not a primitive substance that rebounds from a wall. It is the observable name for a commit-capable electromagnetic energy-information excitation on a phase-link structure, conditioned by local phase-field response. A neutron-star surface is an exterior material boundary with high electromagnetic commit readability. A black-hole horizon is not such a material boundary for the exterior domain.

The diagnostic expectation audited here is correspondingly narrow: quote Under matched compact-object comparison conditions, a black-hole candidate should not require an ordinary exterior material surface-return term to account for the literature-summary quiescent-emission and Type-I surface-burst diagnostics used in this audit. quote This is called the surface-commit return suppression analysis. The observational motivation is continuous with the quiescent-luminosity and no-hard-surface event-horizon literature [citation].

This paper does not claim any of the following:

- a replacement for the event horizon or for classical general relativity; - a new compact-object theorem; - a full accretion-flow model; - a full population reanalysis of X-ray binaries; - a Hawking-radiation detection; - a horizon-material emission model; - a proof of the black-hole information problem; - CHC-wide empirical closure.

The only admitted output is a bounded public literature-summary audit of whether already-published quiescent-luminosity and burst-rate diagnostics are consistent with the CHC surface-commit-null reading.

Let $\Dext$TeX\Dext denote a fixed exterior observation domain. Let $\CEM$TeX\CEM be the exterior map that reads a local material phase-field response as an outgoing electromagnetic excitation capable of producing an exterior record. For an ordinary compact material surface $\partial M$TeX\partial M, the generic material response channel is not null:

\CEM \circ \Rmat_{\partial M} \neq 0 .

For a black-hole horizon $\Hplus$TeX\Hplus, the ordinary material surface-response channel is absent in the exterior domain:

\CEM \circ \Rmat_{\Hplus}=0
  \qquad \text{ordinary material surface-response analysis only.}

Equation reference does not say that the black-hole system is electromagnetically dark in all respects. Disk, jet, wind, shock, corona, and exterior plasma responses remain in the exterior environment. Hawking radiation, if invoked, is a separate quantum-field boundary channel and not ordinary material re-emission from inside the horizon; it is retained only as a formal non-material channel in the schematic decomposition and is not numerically tested in this audit.

A schematic luminosity decomposition is

\Lobs
  =
  \Lext(M,a,\dot M,\mathrm{disk/jet/plasma})
  +\chisurf\,\Lsurf(\dot M,R_{\rm surf})
  +\Lqft+\epsilon .

The CHC surface-commit audit sets

\chisurf =
  
    1 \ \text{or nonzero},  \text{compact object with a material surface},

    0,  \text{no ordinary material surface}.

The observational expectation is not that $\Lext$TeX\Lext vanishes for black-hole systems. It is that observables requiring an ordinary hard surface, such as neutron-star-like quiescent surface luminosity or Type-I thermonuclear surface bursts, should be suppressed in black-hole candidates.

The support audit uses two literature-summary observables.

Quiescent luminosity surface-return gap

For quiescent X-ray novae, the surface-return gap can be summarized by an Eddington-scaled luminosity ratio or by a literature-reported luminosity contrast. In its simplest form, define

\Delta_{\SCR}^{\rm q}
  =
  \log_{10}\left[
  \frac{(\Lxq/\LEdd)_{\NS}}{(\Lxq/\LEdd)_{\BH}}
  \right] .

The literature-summary gate used in the support audit is

\Delta_{\SCR}^{\rm q} \ge 1 .

The threshold is intentionally weak: one decade of suppression. The public literature summary used here reports a roughly two-decade contrast, namely that quiescent black-hole X-ray novae are approximately one hundred times fainter than similar neutron-star X-ray novae [citation].

Type-I burst surface-channel gap

Type-I bursts are thermonuclear surface events associated with accretion onto neutron stars; their absence in black-hole candidates has been used as a no-hard-surface diagnostic in the event-horizon literature [citation]. The surface-channel audit uses the published burst-rate contrast between neutron-star transients and black-hole candidates. Let

\mathcal R_{\rm burst}
  =
  \frac{r_{\NS}}{r_{\BH}^{95\%\,\rm upper}} .

The support audit checks the overall rate contrast and the unstable-luminosity-region contrast using the public values reported by Tournear et al. [citation].

The audit is deliberately conservative.

- Use only declared literature-summary scalars included in the declared literature-summary table. - Do not fit accretion parameters, orbital-period scalings, disk models, or source-level luminosities. - Compute the quiescent luminosity contrast and Type-I burst-rate ratios. - Classify the outcome by declared reporting gates. - Report all limitations and do not promote the result to compact-object closure.

The primary gates are given in Table reference.

Figure or table content is omitted from the web reader; use the canonical manuscript for the exact object.

Applying the declared literature-summary reconstruction rule to the declared table surface gives Table reference.

Figure or table content is omitted from the web reader; use the canonical manuscript for the exact object.

The resulting bounded support-audit classification is center The public-table reconstruction satisfies the conditional surface-return suppression check. center The word conditional is essential. The table statuses are declared gate-level passes on public literature-summary scalars and public arXiv-source table reconstruction outputs, not standalone discoveries or object-level compact-object inferences. The audit states the cited public source tables and recomputes the declared suppression ratios, but it remains outside a new object-level X-ray-binary reanalysis. It supports the CHC accessibility-boundary reading only in the bounded surface-commit return analysis.

The support audit remains subordinate to standard event-horizon reasoning. It provides a CHC retyping of standard no-hard-surface diagnostics on the declared public-table analysis.

Quiescent luminosity: if accreting gas reaches a material surface, stored thermal energy can be radiated from the surface. If the central object has an event horizon, advected energy can disappear from the exterior X-ray surface-return channel. This is the standard motivation behind the quiescent luminosity contrast used here [citation].

Type-I bursts: if a compact object has a material surface where fuel accumulates, thermonuclear instabilities can produce Type-I bursts. Published burst-rate limits for black-hole candidates show strong suppression relative to neutron-star systems under the observing samples summarized in [citation].

Shadow imaging: EHT shadow diagnostics are not used as a numerical gate in this support audit. They are consistent with the same interpretation only at the qualitative level: transparent emission around a black hole can reveal a dark shadow caused by gravitational light bending and photon capture at the event horizon [citation]. This paper does not fit EHT images or introduce a surface-emission constraint; more detailed X-ray spectral approaches to event-horizon imprints are outside the present audit analysis [citation].

The CHC-BH-VP2 analysis would fail or be demoted if any of the following became necessary under matched conditions:

- black-hole candidates require neutron-star-like quiescent surface luminosity after exterior accretion effects are controlled; - black-hole candidates show Type-I surface thermonuclear bursts at neutron-star-like rates in the unstable luminosity region; - horizon-scale images require an independent ordinary material surface-emission term rather than exterior plasma emission plus photon capture/lensing; - the result is used to claim CHC-wide empirical closure or a new black-hole theorem.

This first BH-VP2 support audit is intentionally a bounded public-table reconstruction and literature-summary audit. It does not reconstruct raw object-level observations, orbital-period bins beyond the cited table surfaces, distances, absorption corrections, accretion histories, or source classifications beyond the public source tables. It does not model jets, winds, ADAF/RIAF parameters, magnetic fields, or disk instabilities. It therefore does not replace standard compact-object inference.

The bounded content is narrower: published no-hard-surface diagnostics are expressed here as a single CHC surface-commit return suppression analysis. The analysis is empirically suggestive only in the bounded sense reported by the support audit, and it does not remove the well-known caveats about observational proof of horizons [citation].

The companion source summaries contain the declared literature-summary dataset, public arXiv source-table reconstruction route, public source references, recomputation summaries for the reported metrics, diagnostic summaries, and public-source summaries. No private data, restricted-access inputs, unpublished observational products, or post-hoc fitted parameters are used.

A surface-commit model must conserve total probability across absorption, prompt return, delayed return, and unresolved loss channels. At the infinitesimal level this requires a declared set of jump operators $L_a$TeXL_a with $K=\sum_aL_a^\dagger L_a$TeXK=\sum_aL_a^\dagger L_a. The non-Hermitian no-event trajectory then loses trace at exactly the summed jump rate. A return-suppression factor may redistribute probabilities among the resolved $a$TeXa, but it cannot reduce their total without introducing an additional declared channel.

This condition sharpens the interpretation of a null return. Suppression of an observed channel does not by itself establish irreversible disappearance or a horizon; probability may enter an unobserved branch or later reservoir. The public test must therefore state the instrument alphabet and detection efficiencies, and must reject parameter choices for which the completed map is not completely positive or trace preserving.

The closure test for the surface commit and return suppression is applied to a dimensionless observable vector $y\in\mathbb R^m$TeXy\in\mathbb R^m formed from fixed reference scales and the declared basket of prompt return, delayed return, unresolved loss, and registered event probabilities. Let $a$TeXa range over the independent constitutive inputs comprising surface interaction, prompt channel, delayed-memory channel, absorption channel, and detector response.

proposition: Functional saturation, finite closure, and sector admissibility. Suppose the unrestricted prediction map $F:a\mapsto y$TeXF:a\mapsto y is continuously differentiable on a Banach space of constitutive inputs. If $D_aF$TeXD_aF is surjective and has a bounded right inverse at the calibration point, the unrestricted family is locally open in observable space and supplies no nonzero local equality restriction on $y$TeXy. Suppose instead that a single microscopic closure replaces $a$TeXa by finite parameters $\theta\in\mathbb R^p$TeX\theta\in\mathbb R^p, with profiled nuisance coordinates $\eta\in\mathbb R^q$TeX\eta\in\mathbb R^q. If

J=D_\eta F_{\rm cl}D_\theta F_{\rm cl},
 \qquad \operatorname{rank}J=r<m,

then there are $m-r$TeXm-r independent first-order restrictions

w^{\mathsf T}\delta y=0,
 \qquad w\in\ker J^{\mathsf T}.

If the rank is constant locally, these restrictions are tangent to a compatibility manifold of codimension $m-r$TeXm-r. For this sector, the finite closure is admissible only if all surface outcomes form one completely positive instrument and the delayed channel has a certified passive memory order.

proof. Split surjectivity gives a bounded right inverse $R$TeXR with $D_aF\,R=I_m$TeXD_aF\,R=I_m. The Banach-space submersion theorem then makes $F$TeXF locally onto a neighborhood of the calibrated observable vector. Any smooth equality holding throughout that image must therefore vanish on an open set and contributes no model-specific local restriction. Under finite closure, the attainable first-order variations are exactly the column space of $J$TeXJ. Its orthogonal complement is $\ker J^{\mathsf T}$TeX\ker J^{\mathsf T}, whose dimension is $m-r$TeXm-r by rank--nullity, which proves reference. The constant-rank theorem supplies the stated local manifold. The sector condition is necessary because independent suppression factors need not sum to a conserved probability budget. Failure of that condition therefore rejects the proposed microscopic closure before parameter estimation can be counted as evidence for it.

CHC-BH-VP2 defines a bounded public audit of material-surface return in black-hole candidates. Public literature summaries and reconstructed tables record quiescent-luminosity suppression and Type-I burst non-detections relative to neutron-star systems. These are standard horizon-versus-material-surface diagnostics and are not uniquely implied by the CHC accessibility interpretation; any model without an ordinary radiating surface can share them. The result is therefore a literature-level compatibility comparison, not an object-level X-ray-binary reanalysis, a discriminating CHC prediction, a proof of general relativity, a compact-object theorem, or a Hawking-radiation claim.