CCEGA Paper 24: The QCD Scale as a Cosmological Observable — The Pre-Inflationary Bounce Temperature from Heavy-Ion Physics

CCEGA predicts the pre-inflationary bounce temperature as T_bounce = (120B/π²g_eff)1/4 = 152.9 MeV (B1/4=215 MeV) or 156.5 MeV (B1/4=220 MeV). The measured value is T_QCD = 156.5 ± 1.5 MeV (HotQCD). Agreement at the 2.3% level — exact for B1/4=220 MeV. No other bounce model predicts T_bounce in the MeV range: LQC, string cosmology, and ekpyrosis all predict T~10^19 GeV. CCEGA is the first bounce framework testable by current heavy-ion experiments. ALICE Run 3 (ongoing) and ALICE 3 (2030s) will provide definitive tests simultaneously with the Einstein Telescope search for GW echoes.