Orbit Analysis of Corner Symmetries

Abstract

Corner symmetries are those diffeomorphisms that become physical in codimension two, in that they support non-zero Noether charges. Recently we have shown how to extend phase space so that all such charges are integrable and give a representation of the corner symmetry algebra on this extended phase space. More recently we have studied the coadjoint orbits of what we now call the universal corner symmetry. One finds that certain complementary subalgebras, the extended corner symmetry and the asymptotic corner symmetry, can be associated with finite-distance and asymptotic corners, respectively. There is a simple geometric interpretation here in terms of an Atiyah Lie algebroid over a corner, whose structure group is the universal corner symmetry. The local geometry of a classical spacetime is encoded in related geometric structures.