Correspondence between Asymptotically Flat Spacetimes and Nonrelativistic Conformal Field Theories

Journal Article · Fri Oct 22 04:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.105.171601· OSTI ID:21467031

Bagchi, Arjun ^[1]

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1. Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Chhatnag Road, Allahabad 211019 (India)

We find a surprising connection between asymptotically flat spacetimes and nonrelativistic conformal systems in one lower dimension. The Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) group is the group of asymptotic isometries of flat Minkowski space at null infinity. This is known to be infinite dimensional in three and four dimensions. We show that the BMS algebra in 3 dimensions is the same as the 2D Galilean conformal algebra (GCA) which is of relevance to nonrelativistic conformal symmetries. We further justify our proposal by looking at a Penrose limit on a radially infalling null ray inspired by nonrelativistic scaling and obtain a flat metric. The BMS{sub 4} algebra is also discussed and found to be the same as another class of GCA, called semi-GCA, in three dimensions. We propose a general BMS-GCA correspondence. Some consequences are discussed.

• OSTI ID: 21467031
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 17 Vol. 105; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
ALGEBRA
ASYMPTOTIC SOLUTIONS
CONFORMAL INVARIANCE
FIELD THEORIES
INVARIANCE PRINCIPLES
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
MATHEMATICAL SPACE
MATHEMATICS
METRICS
MINKOWSKI SPACE
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
SPACE
SPACE-TIME