V5p28 — Collective chiral inertia via linking number (zero-free-parameter step of the TQNT oscillation closure)

Within Topological Knot Quantum Theory (TQNT V5), V5p28 is the second step of the canonical oscillation series. It introduces a collective chiral inertia I_chi based on the inter-component linking numbers of a knot link L, with zero free parameter. Starting point. V5p27 (mutual EM oscillation) lifted the scalar-prefactor plateau (~1.05 dex) to ~1.05 dex via pair-wise EM coupling, but B0 remained mis-predicted because the pair coupling cannot capture the rotational moment of inertia of a heterogeneous link. V5p28 reformulates I_chi as a sum I_V5.34_F3 over the linkings Lk(K_i, K_j) of the components, weighted by their individual quantum dimensions. The result is purely topological: no calibration is performed. Result. Plugging I_V5.34_F3 into omega_chi = sqrt(F_torque / I_V5.34_F3) lowers Sum|log| to 0.820 dex on {K0, D0, B0, Bs0} — a 0.23 dex improvement over V5p27 with no parameter added. The residual gap (0.8 dex) is then closed by V5p29 via the three-body multiplicative renormalisation. Honest accounting. The 0.820 dex plateau means that linking-based inertia alone is insufficient: it captures the bulk of the meson hierarchy but misses the fine structure of heterogeneous triplets (asymmetric crossing counts c_min, c_mid, c_max). The V5p29 paper (calibrated beta, delta) closes the residue; V5p30–V5p33 derive the parameters from first principles. Bundle contents. EN + FR LaTeX sources and PDFs of the V5p28 collective-inertia paper; per-meson tables vs PDG; references to V5p27, V5p29, V5p33 weight system and the V5 monograph V5p7.