Quantum Field Theory on a Finite-Capacity Substrate

We construct the quantum field theoretic branch of the finite-capacity latency–erasure framework and derive its ultraviolet completion from the same bounded-realization architecture that already governs the gravitational, cosmological, thermodynamic, stochastic, and microphysical sectors of the program. In this framework, spacetime is not a passive continuum with unlimited kinematical freedom. It is an active realization substrate built from finite-capacity patches with bounded local update rate, bounded realized-load fraction , and an emergent latency field which slows local proper-time generation according to Quantum excitations are therefore not free continuum disturbances propagating over an infinitely accommodative background. They are realized substrate modes whose momentum, frequency, and local activity impose a finite realization burden. As the burden of a mode rises toward the substrate capacity threshold, the local latency grows and imposes a lower bound on realizable Schwinger proper time. This converts the standard continuum propagator into a latency-dressed propagator with exponential ultraviolet suppression while preserving the ordinary infrared limit. We derive this propagator explicitly, establish the recovery of standard perturbative quantum field theory at low burden, and show that the same suppression renders one-loop self-energy integrals finite and extends diagrammatically to general perturbative ultraviolet convergence. The same substrate architecture also generates a quantum noise sector. Because the finite-capacity substrate evolves through irreversible overwrite dynamics, the coarse-grained latency field carries a stochastic component inherited from the program’s existing fluctuation branch. This stochastic latency modulates local proper time, induces phase diffusion in quantum amplitudes, and drives dynamical suppression of off-diagonal density-matrix elements. Quantum decoherence therefore arises here as a direct substrate effect rather than as an external interpretive add-on. The result is a unified QFT descendant sector in which ultraviolet regulation, infrared recovery, and decoherence all emerge from one canonical finite-capacity structure. This establishes the quantum field theoretic completion of the finite-capacity program and opens its high-energy perturbative interface without introducing ad hoc regulators, extra dimensions, or externally imposed discreteness.