First Quantitative Reconstruction of the Nuclear Binding-Energy Curve from Response-Cost Dynamics in the ECSM Framework

The nuclear binding-energy curve is one of the central empirical structures of nuclear physics. In conventional models it emerges from the competition of volume, surface, Coulomb, asymmetry, pairing, shell, and saturation effects. Within the Emergent Condensate Superfluid Medium (ECSM) framework, nuclear binding is interpreted as the inverse of response-maintenance cost in a finite-response coherent medium.

Using AME2020 nuclear data covering 3376 nuclides, this work performs a quantitative reconstruction of the nuclear binding-energy hierarchy from ECSM response-cost dynamics. A sequence of increasingly refined response-cost models is tested. The final balanced alpha/iron-saturation model reproduces the global binding-energy ridge with ridge correlation r = 0.9565, ridge RMSE = 0.2733 MeV/nucleon, observed ridge peak A = 62, predicted ridge peak A = 60, and a helium-4 residual of 1.14 × 10⁻⁴ MeV/nucleon.

The result does not constitute a first-principles nuclear theory. Rather, it demonstrates that a physically motivated ECSM response-cost functional can recover the global nuclear binding hierarchy, the helium-4 closure feature, and the iron–nickel binding maximum within a unified response-based framework. The work serves as a quantitative bridge between ECSM stellar-fusion response-cost models and subsequent ECSM nuclear-stability investigations.