Space as a Topological Soliton Medium: A Heuristic Framework for Unifying Wave-Particle Duality, Spin, and Fundamental Interactions

Modern physics achieves extraordinary predictive accuracy through the Standard Model and quantum field theory, yet foundational ontological questions remain unresolved: What is the physical mechanism underlying wave-particle duality? Why does the point-particle assumption lead to mathematical divergences? Can the four fundamental interactions be understood through a unified spatial substrate? This paper proposes a heuristic ontological framework—the Space-as-Soliton hypothesis—constructed from three physical postulates: (i) photons as energetic mass points in uniform helical motion; (ii) space itself as a structured, elastic medium possessing physical reality and characterized by the gravitational constant, conceptually equivalent to the quantum vacuum or dynamical spacetime metric field; and (iii) electrons as photon mass points captured within self-rotating topological vortex defects (space solitons) executing closed S-type motion. We emphasize that the term "ether" is employed here strictly in the modern sense advocated by Einstein (1920) and Dirac (1951)—not as a nineteenth-century mechanical medium, but as a synonym for the quantum vacuum endowed with geometric and kinematic properties. The framework provides unified conceptual foundations for wave-particle duality (geometric periodicity of helical trajectories), spin (topological double-valuedness of S-type motion on SO(3)), charge (relative orientation of photon motion and soliton rotation), and atomic stability (elastic balance of overlapping soliton fields). Formal correspondences with the Schrödinger equation, Dirac equation, and Bohr energy levels are established as structural mappings, with explicit delineation of which results constitute rigorous derivations and which remain heuristic conjectures. A heuristic Lagrangian density is proposed, and the emergence of gauge symmetries from topological defect classification is discussed as an open research direction. The framework is presented not as a replacement for the mathematical apparatus of quantum field theory, but as a complementary ontological scaffold that may guide the search for deeper structural regularities. Experimental discriminants, including a falsifiable bound on the effective charge radius, are discussed. All heuristic assumptions, mathematical limitations, and pathways toward rigorous derivation are explicitly identified.