Disorder-Protected Suppression of Decoherence: A Falsifiable Test of Many-Body Localization as an Information Degradation Minimum

We present a mathematically controlled, sharply falsifiable framework that tests whether many-body localization (MBL) can protect quantum information against local Markovian dephasing. Using the standard phenomenology of quasi-local l-bits, a Schrieffer-Wolff transformation yields an effective classical rate equation with transition rates ~γ (J/W) ² e^-dH/ξ. This implies a central bound on the von Neumann entropy production: Φ ≤ C γ N (J/W) ² (W ≫ J, γ ≪ J). A variational argument provides an upper bound for the Liouvillian gap. The hypothesis is subjected to a five-point falsification matrix; any single violation disproves it. We provide an open-source QuTiP implementation and numerical results for N=6, confirming the predicted scaling exponent ≈ −2 and persistent Néel imbalance. The framework is compatible with a long-lived prethermal regime and offers a concrete realization of the VES (information degradation minima) hypothesis in open many-body quantum systems. The repository contains the manuscript, executable code (QuTiP, ITensor skeleton), and all figures.