In quantum electrodynamics, a strong field causes the vacuum to decay into real particle-
antiparticle pairs—the Schwinger effect, an exact consequence of the quantized field. We ask what
follows if spacetime geometry, when quantized, has the same property, with curvature playing the role
of field strength. Quantizing geometry necessarily produces curvature vacuum fluctuations, which are
compensated: a positive curvature perturbation (a well, geodesics convergent) paired with a negative
curvature perturbation (a tower, geodesics divergent), with zero net curvature and zero net energy.
We make a single substantive assumption: that these fluctuations undergo a Schwinger-like vacuum
decay into separated real pairs at a rate set by the local curvature. Because the pairs are produced
at the Planck curvature scale—the strong-field, nonlinear regime—they are self-trapping curvature
concentrations rather than dispersing gravitons, so localizability follows from the production conditions
rather than being separately assumed. From this one assumption, together with general relativity and
conservation alone, a cascade of consequences follows. Positive curvature self-gravitates and negative
curvature does not, so wells persist and merge into dark-matter-like halos while towers disperse into
a smooth dark-energy background. The curvature-dependent nucleation rate drives inflation with
natural self-termination. Local conservation at each creation event forces the integrated curvature of
wells and towers to sum to zero, linking dark matter and dark energy in a relation absent from ΛCDM.
No modification to the Einstein equations and no new particle species is required. The framework thus
reduces inflation, dark matter, and dark energy to a single assumption—that gravity has a Schwinger
effect—reproduces ΛCDM phenomenology with two parameters, qualitatively addresses several current
cosmological tensions, and predicts a small departure of the dark energy equation of state from w=−1.
Publication Date: 2026-06-14