TCC bounds on the static patch of de Sitter space

Abstract: Recently, Pei-Ming Ho and Hikaru Kawai have argued that treating particles as wave packets can lead to a shutdown of Hawking radiation after a scrambling time in the case of Schwarzschild black holes. This shutdown arises from viewing quantum field theory near the black hole horizon as an effective field theory, and imposing an appropriate UV cutoff. We show that this effect is also present in the static patch of de Sitter space, leading to a shutdown of Gibbons-Hawking radiation at late times. Assuming this effect is due to the breakdown of effective field theory, we obtain a bound $t \lesssim H^{-1} \ln (H^{-1} M_P)$ on the time scale of validity of effective field theory in de Sitter space, which matches with the predictions of the Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture.