OTSOW: An Empirical Research Programme for Finite-Time Traversable Wormholes: From Astrophysical Screening to Conditional Transmission Tests

Description An Empirical Research Programme for Finite-Time Traversable Wormholes: From Astrophysical Screening to Conditional Transmission Tests This work develops a falsifiable research framework for investigating finite-time traversable wormholes in four-dimensional general relativity, connecting theoretical consistency with observational searches and, conditionally, future controlled transmission experiments. Rather than treating mathematical existence as evidence of physical realization, the programme establishes a hierarchy of evidential claims ranging from calibrated anomalies and model-dependent geometric identification to direct tests of information transmission through an identified traversable connection. The framework uses a finite-time wormhole model supported by a classical phantom scalar field and positive-energy radial null streams as a theoretical benchmark, while explicitly recognizing that the physical existence of the phantom source has not been established. The proposed programme combines source-consistent relativistic modelling with gravitational lensing, joint photometric–astrometric inference, strong-field and gravitational-wave tests, realistic competing astrophysical hypotheses, detector response modelling, and end-to-end injection–recovery procedures. Particular emphasis is placed on separating anomaly detection from wormhole identification and on calibrating sensitivity, false-positive rates, and selection effects using realistic observing windows and instrumental systematics. A central result is that the duration of traversability need not coincide with the timescale of an astronomical observable. For a static Ellis-lens benchmark with throat radius A=106A=10^6 m, the calculated Einstein crossing time is approximately 2.11 days, whereas an independently assumed opening interval of 10A/c10A/c lasts only about 0.0334 s. This difference of more than six orders of magnitude demonstrates that a short-lived traversability window cannot simply be inserted into a static lensing model without an explicit time-dependent propagation calculation. The study also presents an auditable finite-source lensing benchmark in which synthetic Ellis-wormhole light curves are fitted with an ordinary positive point-mass lens. The attained residual RMS differences range from approximately 0.31% to 1.44%, depending on source size. These values are treated strictly as deterministic model-comparison benchmarks rather than detection significances or evidence for observational identifiability, since realistic astrophysical alternatives, correlated systematics, and full survey selection effects have not yet been incorporated. At its strongest level, the programme specifies a conditional controlled transmission experiment requiring two independently localized and accessible wormhole mouths, a mapped exterior geometry, and a traversability interval long enough for signal exchange. The proposed protocol uses independent transmitters, receivers, clocks, and fresh challenge–response signals to test whether information follows a connection that cannot be explained by the mapped exterior causal routes. This stage is explicitly conditional: neither the benchmark construction nor present technology establishes the existence of such an experimentally accessible configuration. Overall, the article reframes traversable-wormhole research as a sequence of testable scientific questions. It provides a methodology for moving from mathematical models to observable predictions, calibrated astronomical searches, population constraints, and—if suitable candidates are ever identified—direct transmission experiments. The resulting programme is designed to produce scientifically meaningful outcomes whether the searches yield candidates, exclusions, or null results.