USSFT Paper XV: Black Holes, Horizons, and Information. Scalar-Tensor GR Recovery and the Entropic Bounce

We study black hole physics within the Unified Space-Time and Scale-Dependent Field Theory (USSFT). Working in the Einstein-frame scalar-tensor reduction established in Paper XII, we prove that the scalar field is exactly frozen (Phi = Phi₀) on any Ricci-flat vacuum background, under standard stationary boundary conditions (regular at the future horizon and approaching Phi₀ asymptotically), including the exterior of Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes. This guarantees that USSFT reproduces all standard general relativity predictions, including photon rings, innermost stable circular orbits, gravitational lensing, Shapiro delay, and ringdown frequencies, with corrections controlled by a single small parameter epsilon = (LSRI/ellcurv) ², which is much less than 1 at all astrophysical horizons (e. g. , epsilon approximately 10^-78 for a 10 Mₛun black hole). In the interior of collapsing matter, where T₌ₔ ₍ₔ is nonzero and typically the trace T is nonzero (so R is nonzero), the SRI higher-derivative term activates at Planck density and is expected to halt gravitational collapse. Combined with the thermodynamic drive from near-minimum local multiplicity states, this produces an entropic bounce, a single explosive rebound rather than a singularity. We derive the Hawking temperature as a consistency inheritance from the EFT regime, establish the parametric entropy scaling S approximately A/LSRI² from lattice microstate counting, and identify falsifiable cross-checks between the entropy coefficient and the USSFT parameter dictionary. For the information paradox, we state explicitly what USSFT can and cannot currently claim, and provide a concrete deliverables checklist for future work. Observational signatures include consistency with current gravitational-wave and black hole shadow measurements, a prediction that some non-repeating fast radio bursts may originate from primordial black holes completing their entropic bounce, and specific near-Planck corrections that could produce gravitational-wave echoes. Primordial black hole formation in this scenario is grounded in the inflationary phase transition mechanism of Paper XIII, which constrains the PBH mass spectrum from the same CMB-fitted parameters that fix the inflationary observables. The frozen-field uniqueness argument incorporates Paper XIII's sharpened value Phi₀ approximately 4e-3 MP, confirming the Yukawa suppression scale 1/m approximately 170 ellP remains microscopic relative to all astrophysical horizons. All claims carry explicit status labels: (A) axiom/definition, (B) derived, (C) conjecture requiring future work. This is the fifteenth paper in the 18-paper USSFT technical series, closing the Cosmology block (Papers XII-XV) ; it builds on the scalar-tensor gravitational sector of Paper XII (DOI: 10. 5281/zenodo. 19705333) and on the inflationary phase transition of Paper XIII (DOI: 10. 5281/zenodo. 19690230), and references the parameter dictionary extension of Paper XVII (in preparation).