Collapse Is Relational: Testing the Temporal Structure of Quantum Decoherence

Collapse is usually modeled as an environment-driven process, independent of how a system is interrogated. Yet experiments across ions, spins, qubits, and condensates show that altering the cadence of measurement changes observed coherence times, producing both Zeno and anti-Zeno regimes. This paper introduces the Temporal-Binding Collapse Theorem, which states that the effective collapse rate is given by \( \Gamma \)\( \tau \)() = \( \Gamma_{E} \) + \( \kappa/\tau \), where \( \Gamma_{E} \) is the environmental rate, \( \tau \) is the detector’s temporal binding window, and \( \kappa \) is a measurable coefficient. Reanalysis of four landmark experiments—Itano’s trapped ions, Álvarez’s NMR spins, Kakuyanagi’s flux qubits, and Streed’s Bose--Einstein condensates—confirms the theorem’s central prediction: \( \Delta \Gamma \) scales linearly with \( 1/\tau \), with \( \kappa \) quantifying whether interrogation accelerates (\( \kappa \) > 0) or suppresses (\( \kappa \) < 0) collapse. The work reframes collapse as relational, shaped jointly by the environment and the temporal structure of measurement, rather than by the environment alone. It provides both a unifying account of Zeno and anti-Zeno effects and a falsifiable research program. A proposed \( \tau \)-engineering experiment, using tunable-resolution detectors such as SNSPDs, offers a decisive test. By placing detector timing under experimental control, this framework shifts collapse studies from interpretation to direct test. Either outcome advances the field: confirmation establishes time as an active variable in decoherence, while falsification strengthens the environment-only view. In both cases, collapse becomes experimentally accountable.