Real-Now-Front Cosmology: A Generative Framework for Spacetime, Expansion, and Dark Matter

We develop Real–Now–Front (RNF) cosmology, a generative framework in which spacetime arises dynamically as an advancing physical present aligns a pre-geometric chronon medium. Chronons are alignment degrees of freedom, not quanta of time; their coherent ordering induces Lorentzian geometry, causal structure, and operational rods and clocks. The dynamics are governed by the Temporal Coherence Principle (TCP), a local alignment and relaxation rule that reconstructs matter patterns and selects a preferred coherence density, so that spacetime symmetries emerge as stable operational properties rather than being postulated. Because each RNF advance encounters a metric-free layer, TCP enforces geometric rescaling to restore coherence, yielding kinematic cosmic expansion without vacuum energy and a local, self-tuning Hubble flow. Under-coherent regions expand, over-coherent regions shrink and collapse, and near-equilibrium regions evolve GR- and FRW-like, with vacuum-dominated regions generically producing late-time acceleration. Chronon microphysics further imposes a universal curvature bound through the Chronon Exclusivity Principle (CEP), leading to finite-density, nonsingular cores with Rcore ∝ M1/3. Small cores (Micro Chronon Condensates) provide a natural cold dark matter candidate, while larger cores reproduce general-relativistic black-hole exteriors with CEP-regulated interiors. RNF cosmology also predicts a mild two-metric structure, yielding small but testable distance–redshift deviations while qualitatively reproducing the large-scale phenomenology of ΛCDM.