The Missing 𝑻^𝟎𝒊 Momentum Flux in Lattice QCD: Chromomagnetic Vacuum Structure, Mass Gap, and Gravitational Analogue

The Wilson lattice QCD action retains Re⁡Tr⁡[P_μν] in its acceptance weight and discards Im⁡Tr⁡[P_0i], the chromomagnetic twist that encodes the rotational momentum flux T^0i of the gluon field. The standard justification is CP symmetry: ⟨Im⁡Tr⁡[P_0i]⟩=0 as an ensemble mean, so the local contribution seems harmless to drop. But the relevant statistical content of a non-trivial vacuum is the variance of Im⁡Tr⁡[P_0i], not its ensemble mean. The deletion is therefore structural: a blindspot in what the action's variational principle responds to, not in what the link variables U_μ (x) carry. We use the Curvature–Transport Correspondence (CTC) as a diagnostic instrument, not a replacement for the Wilson framework, to reconstruct Im⁡Tr⁡[P_0i] from existing link variables on Wilson-sampled gauge configurations and quantify the distributions of the dynamics the action does not respond to. A local effective mass m^* (x) emerges; its lower envelope defines a topologically protected nucleation threshold Δ, a geometric floor below which no stable color vortex can exist. Δ is a lower bound on the Yang–Mills spectral mass gap, enforced by the Z_3 winding structure of SU(3). The Monte Carlo engine is validated at both length scales of the same Wilson sampling: the equilibrium mean plaquette ⟨P⟩ reaches sub-permille agreement with the standard benchmark at the Takahashi–Suganuma production volume of 12^3×24 at β=5.7, and the static QQ ˉ string tension σ_(QQ ˉ ) extracted from Wilson loops at β=6.0 converges to within ±15% of the Bali–Schilling 1992 asymptotic value across three lattice volumes once the standard APE-smearing measurement protocol is applied. Six N=24 production runs at β∈{5.0,5.4,5.8} give Δ(β=5.0)/Δ(β=5.8)=1.021, max variation 2.08%: Δ is β-invariant, a topological floor, not a dynamical running scale. A T^0i-augmented action α-scan at N=24 amplifies the chromomagnetic twist variance while preserving CP at every α, leaving Δ flat in the perturbative regime. The structural reading of the spin crisis and the ∼99% non-Higgs proton mass follow from the same blindspot: the local rotational momentum flux is present in every Wilson configuration but absent from the action's variational response, requiring matrix-element workarounds (gradient flow, large-momentum effective theory, GPDs) for what CTC accesses directly as a variance observable. Testing this implication quantitatively requires direct matrix-element computation on augmented ensembles, which is deferred to future work.