An Effective-Field Model for Seeding, Growth, and Falsifiable Cosmic-Dawn Signatures
Early massive black holes are now observed or strongly inferred within the first billion years of cosmic history, including an accreting black hole in GN-z11 at redshift 10.6, the UHZ1 candidate near redshift 10.3, and massive black holes associated with the little-red-dot population. These objects place strong constraints on seed formation and growth, but current observations do not uniquely select one origin channel. Heavy seeds, light seeds followed by rapid growth, dense stellar clusters, and super-Eddington accretion remain viable in parts of parameter space.
This paper develops a narrower alternative: an informational-field-assisted seeding hypothesis motivated by the Unified Informational Physics Ontology while formulated as conventional covariant physics. The revised model deliberately removes two assumptions from an earlier 2025 formulation. It does not identify a dimensionless informational score with spacetime curvature, and it does not use informational or scalar time as additional cosmic time for black-hole growth. Instead, it introduces a minimally coupled complex scalar field with explicit stress-energy in Einstein-Klein-Gordon theory.
For the primary free-field benchmark, self-gravitating scalar condensates possess the established Kaup maximum-mass scale, M_K = 0.633 M_Pl^2/m_I. This relation links a scalar-field mass to a characteristic compact-condensate mass without assigning a seed mass arbitrarily. A benchmark scalar mass of approximately 8.46 × 10^-16 eV corresponds to a compact scale of approximately 10^5 solar masses. If early cosmological evolution forms condensates near this scale and some enter a collapsing unstable branch, massive black-hole seeds could form. The field is not given a separate ad hoc mass-creation rule.
Post-seed evolution is intentionally conventional. Using standard radiatively efficient accretion and a Planck-like cosmological background, a 10^5-solar-mass seed formed by redshift 20 requires an effective time-averaged Eddington ratio times duty cycle of approximately 0.54 to reach the GN-z11 mass scale by redshift 10.6. The calculation shows that the proposed new physics need only address seed origin, not invent a second exponential growth mechanism.
The central result is conditional rather than empirical. The field equations and benchmark calculations are mathematically closed and reproducible, but this paper does not calculate the cosmological formation rate or abundance of the required condensates. The strongest falsification route is therefore direct: the model fails if the relevant scalar field is excluded, if early condensates cannot form sufficiently early or abundantly, if collapse predominantly disperses or migrates instead of forming horizons, or if surviving predictions are fully reproduced by simpler seed models without a distinctive residual signature.
The accompanying reproducibility package regenerates the scalar-mass mapping, cosmic ages, and growth benchmarks from frozen assumptions. The paper is presented as a falsifiable theoretical seeding hypothesis, not as evidence that an informational field has been detected or that UIPO has been empirically validated.
If supported, the model would add a parameter-linked massive-seed channel that can be compared directly with direct-collapse, stellar, and dark-sector alternatives. Its most useful future tests are cosmological scalar-field simulations, numerical-relativity collapse studies, black-hole seed-mass distributions, host-galaxy correlations, and gravitational-wave searches. These tests can reject the proposal without requiring acceptance of the informational ontology.