Is Trans-Planckian Censorship a Swampland Conjecture?

Abstract

During an accelerated expansion of the Universe, quantum fluctuations of sub-Planckian size can be stretched outside the horizon and be regarded effectively classical. Recently, it has been conjectured that such horizon-crossing of trans-Planckian modes never happens inside theories of quantum gravity (the trans-Planckian censorship conjecture, TCC). We point out several conceptual problems of this conjecture, which is in itself formulated as a statement on the restriction of possible scenarios in a theory: by contrast a standard swampland conjecture is a restriction of possible theories in the landscape of the quantum gravity. We emphasize the concept of swampland universality, i.e. that a swampland conjecture constrains any possible scenario in a given effective field theory. In order to illustrate the problems clearly we introduce several versions of the conjecture, where TCC condition is imposed differently to scenarios realizable in a given theory. We point out that these different versions of the conjecture lead to observable differences: a TCC violation in another Universe can exclude a theory, and such reduction of the landscape restricts possible predictions in our Universe. Our analysis raises the question of whether or not the trans-Planckian censorship conjecture can be regarded as a swampland conjecture concerning the existence of UV completion.