Gravity as a Collective Phase Shift of the Higgs Vacuum: The Endothermic-Cold Model (ECI) and its Empirical Verification from Compact Objects to Galactic Scales

This work investigates a systematic deficit of observable energy in a broad class of gravitating astrophysical systems and proposes its unified description in terms of a dimensionless energy–redistribution parameter, [Formula: see text], defined as the fraction of baryonic energy that does not appear in observable channels. Using independent observational probes — including compact-object mergers, accretion systems (quasars), Type Ia supernovae and galactic dynamics — we show that a comparable fraction of energy is consistently missing from the observable energy budget across different physical regimes and scales. This points to the presence of a universal energy–redistribution effect. The key result of this work is the empirical reconstruction of a single parameter governing this deficit, which remains approximately consistent (with typical values [Formula: see text]–0.3) for systems characterized by markedly different physical conditions. Such universality indicates that the observed energy imbalance is not system-specific but reflects a common underlying physical process. Within the Endothermic–Cold Interior (ECI) model, this effect is interpreted as a redistribution of energy into a vacuum–response component associated with a displacement of the Higgs vacuum expectation value. In this picture, gravity is viewed as a collective response of the vacuum, while the observed energy deficit corresponds to energy stored in the vacuum configuration. The results presented here establish the existence of a universal energy–redistribution effect at the level of observations. Within the present framework, its interpretation in terms of a vacuum–response component (ECI) emerges as the most natural and minimally parameterized explanation consistent with all observational channels considered.