The 1D flux power spectrum of the Lyman-Alpha forest from eBOSS and DESI shows a 3-5σ suppression of small-scale power at k ~ 1 h/Mpc, z ~ 3, compared to Planck ΛCDM extrapolation (Palanque-Delabrouille 2020; Rogers 2024). The deficit has been interpreted as hint for non-zero neutrino masses, running spectral index, or Warm Dark Matter, all suppressing structure growth on small scales.
The standard model assumes cuspy NFW dark-matter halos that produce specific small-scale matter-power-spectrum amplitude. Recovering the observed Lyman-alpha forest power deficit demands either neutrino masses near 0.3 to 0.5 eV (in tension with other constraints), Warm Dark Matter (in tension with halo-formation observations), or running spectral index (in tension with simple inflation).
SCT replaces the hot-dense-center with a superluminal collision and the thermalized debris field. From this single change, the Lyman-alpha forest power deficit is a gravitational-superposition smoother-halo signature. With no CDM particles to provide cuspy NFW halo profiles, the effective halo profiles are smoother (P50, P51, P52, P54), reducing the small-scale density-fluctuation amplitude that the Lyman-alpha forest probes.
Cascade-thermalized gas structured by cascade-stream geometry (P22, P25, P34) + cascade-stream filament infrastructure produces the large-scale Lyman-alpha forest distribution while the absent particle-CDM cuspy halos suppress the small-scale power. The smoother-halo profile naturally produces the observed factor-of-2 to factor-of-5 small-scale power deficit at k ~ 1 h/Mpc that ΛCDM cannot reproduce without invoking warm dark matter or fine-tuned neutrino masses.
The same M6 framework that resolves the peak-statistics deficit (recid 71), the peak-heights narrowness (recid 81), the lensing-amplitude excess (recid 16, 30), and the broader no-DM-particle phenomenology accounts for the Lyman-alpha forest power deficit. There is no need to invoke neutrino-mass or WDM modifications, both of which create new tensions with other observations. The Lyman-alpha forest power deficit is a clean cascade-signature: small-scale power is suppressed exactly where coherent-mesh-not-particle-CDM physics predicts.
If precision DESI + eBOSS + future Lyman-alpha forest measurements find the small-scale power at k ~ 1 h/Mpc fully consistent with cuspy-NFW + standard-neutrino predictions at the 5% level (no smoother-halo signature), the M6 coherent-mesh explanation is refuted. The signature SCT prediction is the deficit amplitude matching the smoother-mesh-halo profile expectations parameter-free from the A* = 5.970 framework.