Testing the Weak Gravity -- Cosmic Censorship Connection

Abstract

A surprising connection between the weak gravity conjecture and cosmic censorship has recently been proposed. In particular, it was argued that a promising class of counterexamples to cosmic censorship in four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-$\Lambda$ theory would be removed if charged particles (with sufficient charge) were present. We test this idea and find that indeed if the weak gravity conjecture is true, one cannot violate cosmic censorship this way. Remarkably, the minimum value of charge required to preserve cosmic censorship appears to agree precisely with that proposed by the weak gravity conjecture.