Horizons, Area Laws, and Entropy from Coherence Capacity Bottlenecks

We derive horizon formation, area laws, and entropy bounds as structural consequences of coherence-capacity bottlenecks in projection-based effective descriptions. Building on the transport and focusing theory of coherence capacity, we show that when inward capacity flux into a region exceeds outward redistribution permitted by admissible dynamics, coherence capacity is exhausted on a codimension-one surface. Such surfaces act as horizons: effective evolution becomes noninvertible across them and global information recovery is impossible. Entropy is identified as the cumulative coherence capacity irreversibly shed at these bottlenecks, while area laws follow from universal bounds on capacity flux through hypersurfaces. For stationary configurations, capacity flux saturates the bound, reproducing the Bekenstein–Hawking area scaling without microscopic state counting. Restricted recovery remains possible for subalgebras where capacity is not exhausted, explaining Page-curve behavior and island constructions without paradox. The results are independent of microscopic dynamics and apply to any effective theory with finite stability margins, unifying horizons, entropy, and information loss as consequences of capacity transport and exhaustion.