A (strictly) contemporary perspective on trans-Planckian censorship
arXiv:2205.11620 · doi:10.1007/s10701-022-00593-7
Abstract
I critically discuss a controversial 'trans-Planckian censorship' conjecture, which has recently been introduced to researchers working at the intersection of fundamental physics and cosmology. My focus explicitly avoids any appeals to contingent research within string theory (the sociological origins of the conjecture) or regarding the more general (quantum) gravitational 'swampland'. Rather, I concern myself with the conjecture's foundations in our current, well-trodden physics of quantized fields, spacetime, and (classical) gravity. In doing so, I locate what exactly within trans-Planckian censorship amounts to a departure from current physics -- identifying what is, ultimately, so conjectural about the conjecture.
Accepted at Foundations of Physics
References in corpus (6)
- The Swampland: Introduction and Review
- Lectures on the Swampland Program in String Compactifications
- A new kind of cyclic universe
- The trans-Planckian censorship conjecture from the swampland distance conjecture
- Limitations of an Effective Field Theory Treatment of Early Universe Cosmology
- Trans-Planckian Philosophy of Cosmology