A Proposed Axion Field Framework for Spacetime, Light, and Gravity

This paper proposes that the axion field constitutes the substrate of spacetime itself — not a particle within spacetime, but the medium that spacetime is made of. From this single proposition, a number of the fundamental questions of physics dissolve rather than require solution: the graviton becomes unnecessary, dark matter and dark energy resolve as geometric expressions of the same field, the cosmological constant problem reflects a wrong model of the vacuum, the hierarchy problem is revealed as a category error, wave-particle duality ceases to be a paradox, and the arrow of time follows naturally from the field's entropic tendency toward its ground state. The framework arrives independently at conclusions that recent observational work — particularly findings from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument — has begun to approach from within the standard model, representing a convergence rather than an evolution of that literature. No mathematical formalism is developed here; the contribution is conceptual architecture, identifying the axion field as substrate as the right place to look and the questions that cease to require answers once it is accepted.