JWST Timing Constraints in a Non-Expansion Redshift Framework

Abstract

This work examines limited, testable consequences of a previously established background level redshift framework in which frequency-independent redshift is described by collisionless Liouville evolution without requiring metric expansion. It does not propose a new cosmological model, nor does it address structure formation, recombination microphysics, or the CMB power spectrum. The framework does not exclude a hot dense initial state; a recombination epoch is treated as a thermal threshold event compatible with both expansion and non-expansion interpretations of subsequent redshift. Treating an illustrative post-recombination relaxation form for the redshift kernel as a concrete hypothesis, this analysis shows that the parameterization predicts reduced cosmic assembly time at z ≳ 10 relative to standard ΛCDM. Observations of early massive galaxies by JWST therefore act as an empirical constraint on the relaxation timescale and initial kernel rate, bounding the allowed post-recombination dynamics rather than resolving timing tensions. The paper further proves that frequency-independent redshift operators preserve angular multipole structure, once present, under collisionless evolution, strictly at the level of transport, establishing that the existence of CMB anisotropies alone does not logically discriminate between expansion and non-expansion redshift mechanisms at the level of angular transport. The analysis concludes by clarifying the precise observational content of CMB background and anisotropy data, explicitly delineating which inferences are supported and which require additional dynamical assumptions.