Low-redshift probes infer less matter clustering than Planck-normalized ΛCDM predicts (KiDS-1000: S₈ = 0.759; DES Y3: 0.776; Planck: 0.832), and the deficit is concentrated at late times: ACT DR6 and Planck lensing cross-correlations with DESI galaxies, eROSITA cluster counts, and HSC-Y3 shear all hint that the lowest-redshift bins drive the suppression. The growth history bends away from the model at low z, a kink rather than a uniform offset.
Once its parameters are fixed at recombination, ΛCDM's growth history is rigid: matter clusters under GR with a constant Λ, and sigma8(z) follows with no late-time freedom. Massive neutrinos suppress power at all redshifts nearly uniformly and early dark energy acts before recombination, so a suppression that switches on in the dark-energy era has no dial, and the model has nowhere to put the kink.
SCT replaces the hot-dense-center with a superluminal collision, and replaces the lone matter field with coherently superposed comoving sources whose amplification A(N, σ_v, R) grows as structure virializes (P50, P52). The effective coherence factor rises from 1 before structure exists through 4.75 at z = 10 and 5.28 at z = 5 to 5.85 today (Paper 15), tracking the virialized volume fraction f_virial(z) = 0.17 (1+z)^-1.5. Because the inferred clustering amplitude scales as sigma8_inferred = A^(1/2) x sigma8_true (Paper 6, Equation 20), the gap between the CMB-anchored prediction and what low-redshift surveys measure grows exactly as A(z) grows.
That is the kink. At high redshift A is near 1, the mesh contribution is negligible, and the growth history matches ΛCDM, which is why the high-z bins agree with the CMB. As virialization proceeds the coherence amplification climbs steeply in the dark-energy era, and a fit that attributes every dynamical and lensing signal to matter alone misreads the late-time sky. SCT quantifies the shape: the S₈ deficit runs from about 0.05 at z of 0.3 to below 0.01 at z of 1.5, following A(z) proportional to (1+z)^-γ with γ of 0.5 to 1.0.
This is the same coherence signature that produces the growth-index excess (gamma = 0.633), the lensing-amplitude anomaly, and the closed-universe pull: one growing mesh contribution read through different parameterizations. There is no need to invoke massive-neutrino fine-tuning, early dark energy, or modified gravity; the gravity is GR throughout, applied to coherently moving sources.
The redshift dependence is the kill switch: if multiple independent high-redshift weak-lensing surveys (Euclid, Rubin-LSST) measure the S₈ tension persisting at equal magnitude at z of 1.5 as at z of 0.3, the superposition mechanism is strongly disfavored and uniform-suppression solutions such as massive neutrinos or early dark energy win. SCT requires the tension to shrink with redshift.