Early Chemical Complexity of the Universe

ABSTRACTThis article formulates and analyzes the hypothesis of early chemical complexity of the Universe, asserting thatcomplex organic chemistry emerges within the first one to two billion years of cosmic history and therefore doesnot constitute a late-time bottleneck for biogenesis. The hypothesis is developed within the Quantum Model of theUniverse (QMU) as a structural boundary condition on baryonic matter, independent of biological assumptions.Chemical complexity is treated as a necessary consequence of stellar evolution, metal enrichment, dust formation,and radiation-driven molecular synthesis, rather than as a contingent feature restricted to mature galactic environments. Standard relations of cosmic chemical evolution and molecular kinetics are employed as effective structuralconstraints, not as detailed galactic models.The work identifies regimes of structural equivalence and observational degeneracy between early and delayedchemical emergence scenarios and specifies the conditions under which these degeneracies can be broken using highredshift observations. Explicit observational interfaces are formulated in terms of metallicity, molecular abundance,and dust content at z ≳ 6.The hypothesis is constructed to remain empirically refutable and collapses continuously to delayed-chemistrymodels when early enrichment or molecular survival is observationally excluded. No biological claims are introduced.The results establish early chemical complexity as an autonomous, self-consistent, and independently publishablescientific hypothesis.