Strong-lensing arcs reveal puzzles: giant-arc abundance with length:width > 10:1 higher than ΛCDM simulations predict; arc radii + positions sometimes disagree with mass models from weak lensing or X-ray observations; arc morphology asymmetries difficult to explain with smooth NFW dark-matter halos (Bartelmann 1998; Meneghetti 2013). Radial arcs + tangential arcs at unexpected radii + multiply-imaged systems with anomalous flux ratios suggest more complex mass distributions.
The standard model has lens models with smooth cuspy NFW dark-matter halos. Recovering arc statistics + morphologies + abundance demands fine-tuned cluster mass distributions or modified lens-mass models, 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, strong-lensing arc properties come from gravitational superposition with mesh contribution. The effective lensing mass M_eff = A × M_baryonic with A* = 5.970 in fully virialized clusters (P50, P51, P52, P54, parameter-free from 1/f_b in Paper 13) provides the enhanced lensing mass that produces the observed giant-arc abundance.
Cluster substructure + cascade-debris substructure (per recid 194 GGSL + Paper 6 A6.3) provides additional small-scale lensing-mass concentrations that produce the radial arcs + tangential arcs at unexpected radii + flux-ratio anomalies. The cascade-stream filament + cosmic-web infrastructure (P22, P25, P34) gives clusters their cascade-deposited multi-component mass distributions whose lensing signatures match observations without requiring fine-tuned NFW models.
Pre-existing matter (P25) gives cluster-baryon heterogeneity that contributes to arc-morphology diversity. Angular-momentum inheritance (P31, P32) gives cluster-scale orientation alignments that affect arc geometry. The same M6 framework that resolves the A_lens excess (recid 16, 30), the time-delay lensing H₀ offset (recid 213), the cluster-substructure GGSL excess (recid 194), the weak-lensing peaks deficit (recid 226), and the broader no-DM-particle phenomenology accounts for strong-lensing arc properties without exotic CDM.
If precision JWST + Euclid + Roman strong-lensing surveys find arc statistics fully consistent with smooth-NFW ΛCDM predictions at the 5% level (no Φ_mesh enhancement + cascade-stream substructure signature), the M6 explanation is refuted. The signature SCT prediction is arc abundance matching the cascade-mesh A* = 5.970 enhancement + cascade-stream substructure distribution.