Quark Confinement and Hadron Structure in the Cohesion Unified Field Theory

Quarks in the Cohesion Unified Field Theory are fractional closure segments of the
n = 6 recursion geometry. Their confinement arises from the geometric impossibility of
sustaining continuance without completing the full closure: a fractional closure cannot
satisfy the torsion accumulation, slip threshold, and surplus-collapse balance conditions
required for stable recursion. Hadrons — baryons and mesons — are composite recursion
structures in which fractional closures combine to form complete torsion cycles. Color
charge is slip phase complementarity: three quarks in a baryon occupy three nonoverlapping slip phases that sum to the full n = 6 cycle. Confinement is therefore a
geometric consequence of the operator set, not a force. The fractional closure coefficients
α are empirical anchors pending first-principles derivation from the torsion interval
structure; their connection to fractional charge (charge as surplus asymmetry of the
fractional closure) is identified but not yet quantified. Quantum chromodynamics
provides the successful quantitative description of hadron structure within its domain;
this paper provides the geometric substrate from which quark confinement and composite
hadron structure emerge in the Cohesion UFT framework.