THE INFRARED CUTOFF Where the photon dissolves into the lattice — a falsifiable prediction of the substrate framework 1 μm 10 μm 100 μm 1 mm 1 cm 10 cm WAVELENGTH λ NEAR / MID IR FAR IR · TERAHERTZ MICROWAVE 300 THz 30 THz 3 THz 300 GHz 30 GHz 3 GHz FREQUENCY ν = c / λ 1 eV 100 meV 10 meV 1 meV 100 μeV 10 μeV ENERGY E = hc / λ COHERENCE LENGTH ξ λ ≈ 100 μm E ≈ 13 meV ν ≈ 3 THz ξ ≈ width of a human hair MODON PHOTON REGIME solitonic · localized · quantized λ < ξ PHONON GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE REGIME collective · delocalized · continuous λ > ξ MODON propagates at c counter-rotating vortex dipole PHONON lattice oscillation collective mode of the vortex lattice Emin = hc / ξ = 2π · m 1 c² predicted spectral feature subtle transition in propagation character at the coherence scale E = hc / λ same dispersion — different character Substrate framework · photon-modon · coherence length ξ ≈ 100 μm · dc1 mass m₁ ≈ 2 meV/c²