Trans-Planckian Censorship
The ‘trans-Planckian censorship’ conjecture was recently introduced to researchers working at the intersection of fundamental physics and large-scale cosmology, garnering immediate controversy. Some of my current work develops the philosophical foundations for the conjecture: why it is exciting in the course of ongoing research toward a theory of quantum gravity, why might one be brought to speculate in its favor, etc.
A (strictly) contemporary perspective on trans-Planckian censorship
[Foundations of Physics, preprint available here: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/20551/]
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.
Trans-Planckian Philosophy of Cosmology
[SHPS, preprint available here: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/19652/]
I provide some philosophical groundwork for the recently proposed ‘trans-Planckian censorship’ conjecture in theoretical physics. In particular, I argue that structure formation in early universe cosmology is, at least as we typically understand it, autonomous with regards to quantum gravity, the high energy physics that governs the Planck regime in our universe. Trans-Planckian censorship is then seen as a means of rendering this autonomy an empirical constraint within ongoing quantum gravity research.