{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,30]],"date-time":"2025-12-30T05:20:58Z","timestamp":1767072058398,"version":"3.48.0"},"reference-count":74,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]],"date-time":"2025-12-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1766534400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Entropy"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This work explores a geometric description of black holes in which spacetime terminates on a curvature-triggered hypersurface rather than extending to an interior singularity. We study the implications of a scenario in which, upon reaching a critical curvature threshold, the three-dimensional spatial geometry compresses into a thin, closed boundary identified here as the wafold. Beyond this, the manifold would no longer continue, and all mass\u2013energy and information would be confined to the hypersurface itself. This framework combines two well-explored paths: (1) curvature-driven geometric compression, in which extreme curvature forces the bulk degrees of freedom to become supported on a thin hypersurface (without altering the underlying dimensionality of spacetime), and (2) the motivation underlying the holographic principle, namely that black-hole entropy scales with surface area rather than volume, suggesting that information is governed by a boundary geometry rather than a bulk volume. We elaborate a dimensional conversion law that would be required to describe the collapse of spatial volume into surface area as a conserved flux of geometric capacity across the wafold, and we analyze the resulting consequences of treating this hypersurface as the terminal boundary of the manifold.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e28010022","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]],"date-time":"2025-12-24T16:41:19Z","timestamp":1766594479000},"page":"22","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The Wafold: Curvature-Driven Termination and Dimensional Compression in Black Holes"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"28","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0563-784X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Javier","family":"Via\u00f1a","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics and Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"57","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevLett.14.57","article-title":"Gravitational collapse and space-time singularities","volume":"14","author":"Penrose","year":"1965","journal-title":"Phys. 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