TU-GUT-SYSY v8 – Final Closure: The Quantum Electromagnetic Vacuum as the Sole Physical Entity

TU-GUT-SYSY v8 (December 2025) is the final and definitive iteration of the unification programme begun in 2025.A single physical entity – the four-potential of the electromagnetic field AμA_\muA_\mu in Minkowski vacuum – and a single ontological principle – degrees of freedom exist only where the entanglement entropy of the vacuum SentS_{\text{ent}}S_{\text{ent}} can still increase – are shown to be sufficient to quantitatively derive, with no additional free parameters, the entirety of observed physics: fermionic matter as topologically stable knotted electromagnetic field lines (Ranada–Faddeev–Niemi–Bilson-Thompson solitons), nuclear magic numbers and β/α decays as minimal entropic discharge processes, the three gauge interactions as different regimes of electromagnetic topology, exact Einstein general relativity outside horizons, the astrophysical black-hole mass-gap theorem (no stable objects between ∼2.2 M⊙ and ∼5 M⊙), a 0.3–0.5 % excess in solar ⁷Be and ⁸B neutrino fluxes (testable 2027–2030), the Big Bounce, galactic dark-matter density, and late-time cosmic acceleration. String theory and loop quantum gravity emerge as low-entropy limits of the very same vacuum.No extra dimensions, no supersymmetry, no landscape, no auxiliary fields, and no ad-hoc constants are introduced.Current version: v8 – Final Closure (December 2025)Previous version: DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17802910