Can the PoW Part of PoA Be Subject to a ‘Difficulty Bomb’?

A 'difficulty bomb' is a pre-programmed increase in PoW difficulty designed to eventually make mining blocks so difficult that the network is forced to transition to a different consensus mechanism, like PoS. While PoA already incorporates PoS, its PoW component could theoretically be subject to a bomb.

However, since PoA is designed as a long-term hybrid, it typically relies on dynamic difficulty adjustment rather than a pre-set bomb.