Galactic free-free emission shows discrepancies between expected optical depth from Hα corrected for dust and actual radio brightness. Inferred electron temperatures sometimes unphysically high or with unexplained latitude gradients. AME confuses with free-free emission, leaving residuals in CMB maps after component separation (Dickinson 2003; Planck 2016).
The standard model attributes free-free emission to standard photo-ionization in known ionized-gas populations. Recovering observed discrepancies demands either revised ionization-source models or unaccounted free-free mist components, neither of which is parsimonious without external constraints.
SCT replaces the hot-dense-center with a superluminal collision and the thermalized debris field. From this single change, free-free optical depth depends on cascade-thermalized + in-cycle ionized-gas populations (P25, P28) plus standard Galactic emission physics. Pre-existing matter from prior cycles supplies the gas + ionizing-source populations beyond what standard hierarchical-galaxy formation produces.
Cascade-seeded SMBH (P46) drove past Galactic-Center ionizing events (cross-link recid 198, 204) that contributed to the cumulative ionized-gas budget across the Galaxy. Cascade-stream filament infrastructure (P34) distributes the ionized populations across the sky, producing the latitude gradients that simple photo-ionization models cannot fully match. Angular-momentum inheritance (P31, P32) gives the ionized-gas populations their J-aligned spatial patterns.
Combined inherited + in-cycle ionized populations + standard Galactic emission physics produce the observed free-free optical depth + AME residuals naturally without requiring fine-tuned source-model modifications. The same M11 framework that resolves the Galactic plane emission residuals (recid 202), the synchrotron depolarization (recid 203), the radio-loop foregrounds (recid 161), and the broader cascade-population phenomenology accounts for free-free optical-depth discrepancies.
If precision SKA + ngVLA + future low-frequency surveys find Galactic free-free emission fully consistent with standard photo-ionization predictions from known sources at the 5% level (no cascade-seeded ionization-source signature), the M11 explanation is refuted. The signature SCT prediction is free-free residuals matching cascade-seeded source-population distribution.