Cutting Corners with Celestial CFT

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:22100022,
            doi = {10.48660/22100022},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/22100022},
            author = {Pasterski, Sabrina},
            keywords = {Quantum Gravity},
            language = {en},
            title = {Cutting Corners with Celestial CFT},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2022},
            month = {oct},
            note = {PIRSA:22100022 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }
          

Abstract

Celestial Holography proposes a duality between gravitational scattering in asymptotically flat spacetimes and a conformal field theory living on the celestial sphere. The main motivation for this program comes from the connection between soft theorems and asymptotic symmetries in asymptotically flat spacetimes, and our ability to recast soft operators as currents in a codimension 2 CFT. We present a streamlined route from asymptotic symmetries in 4D asymptotically flat spacetimes to currents in a 2D celestial CFT in a manner that makes their relation to QFT soft theorems manifest. We use this to re-examine the bulk picture of radial evolution in the 2D theory and reconcile the construction of charges in CCFT with the more familiar construction from AdS/CFT, despite the differing codimension. In the process, we point out how the Carrollian and Celestial perspectives amount to slicing the bulk and boundary in different ways — our celestial slices cut through the usual corner! — and emphasize how these perspectives inform each other. Based on 2201.06805, 2202.11127 and 2205.10901