- Open Access
Celestial kinematical interpretation for an extended algebra
Phys. Rev. D 112, 125013 – Published 5 December, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8j34-cg6d
Abstract
Motivated by the work of Longhi and Materassi, who constructed a realization of the (centerless) algebra for the massive Klein-Gordon field in dimensions, we build a realization of the (centerless) massless algebra including superrotations. This realization depends only on the momenta in the light cone expressed in celestial coordinates without any reference to the Klein-Gordon field. The quadratic Casimir of the Lorentz algebra is written in terms of a second order differential operator and the volume form plays an essential role in this construction. The algebra in terms of vector fields shows its kinematical nature, like the Poincaré algebra. We also construct a dynamical realization of from the symplectic structure on the solutions of the massless four-dimensional Klein-Gordon field in terms of quadratic expressions of the Fourier modes and plane waves invariant under translations. Using the Mellin transform, we rewrite the Klein-Gordon field in terms of the boost invariant basis, and write down the corresponding realization. We also provide the relation with spherical harmonics, linking our results with the solutions of Longhi-Materassi, which are in fact a subset of ours.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
References (25)
- H. Bondi, M. G. J. van der Burg, and A. W. K. Metzner, Gravitational waves in general relativity. VII. Waves from axisymmetric isolated systems, Proc. R. Soc. A 269, 21 (1962).
- R. Sachs, Asymptotic symmetries in gravitational theory, Phys. Rev. 128, 2851 (1962).
- G. Barnich and C. Troessaert, Symmetries of asymptotically flat 4 dimensional spacetimes at null infinity revisited, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 111103 (2010).
- A. Strominger, Lectures on the infrared structure of gravity and gauge theory, arXiv:1703.05448.
- G. Longhi and M. Materassi, A canonical realization of the BMS algebra, J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 40, 480 (1999).
- A.-M. Raclariu, Lectures on celestial holography, arXiv:2107.02075.
- S. Pasterski, Lectures on celestial amplitudes, Eur. Phys. J. C 81, 1062 (2021).
- L. Donnay, Celestial holography: An asymptotic symmetry perspective, Phys. Rep. 1073, 1 (2024).
- A. Bagchi, A. Banerjee, P. Dhivakar, S. Mondal, and A. Shukla, The Carrollian kaleidoscope, arXiv:2506.16164.
The signature of the Minkowski metric is .
- S. Stieberger and T. R. Taylor, Symmetries of celestial amplitudes, Phys. Lett. B 793, 141 (2019).
- A. Fotopoulos, S. Stieberger, T. R. Taylor, and B. Zhu, Extended BMS algebra of celestial CFT, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2020) 130.
- A. Bagchi, R. Basu, A. Kakkar, and A. Mehra, Flat holography: Aspects of the dual field theory, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2016) 147.
- X. Bekaert, A. Campoleoni, and S. Pekar, Carrollian conformal scalar as flat-space singleton, Phys. Lett. B 838, 137734 (2023).
- X. Bekaert, A. Campoleoni, and S. Pekar, Holographic Carrollian conformal scalars, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2024) 242.
- B. Chen, H. Sun, and Y.-f. Zheng, Quantization of Carrollian conformal scalar theories, Phys. Rev. D 110, 125010 (2024).
- L. Donnay, A. Fiorucci, Y. Herfray, and R. Ruzziconi, Bridging Carrollian and celestial holography, Phys. Rev. D 107, 126027 (2023).
- S. Banerjee, Symmetries of free massless particles and soft theorems, Gen. Relativ. Gravit. 51, 128 (2019).
- S. Pasterski, A. Puhm, and E. Trevisani, Revisiting the conformally soft sector with celestial diamonds, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2021) 143.
- L. Donnay, S. Pasterski, and A. Puhm, Asymptotic symmetries and celestial CFT, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2020) 176.
The dimension of the space of such polynomials is readily calculated to be , as expected.
- M. E. Taylor, Partial Differential Equations. I: Basic Theory, Applied Mathematical Sciences Vol. 115 (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1996), pp. xxiv+563.
- C. Batlle, V. Campello, and J. Gomis, Canonical realization of ()-dimensional Bondi-Metzner-Sachs symmetry, Phys. Rev. D 96, 025004 (2017).
- A. Strominger, Algebra and the celestial sphere: Infinite towers of soft graviton, photon, and gluon symmetries, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 221601 (2021).
- A. Cappelli, C. A. Trugenberger, and G. R. Zemba, Infinite symmetry in the quantum Hall effect, Nucl. Phys. B396, 465 (1993).