Quantum Gravity

From ’t Hooft to BMS: Connecting Shockwaves and MemoriesConfirmed

by Temple He (Caltech)

America/Toronto
PI/4-405 - Bob Room (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)

PI/4-405 - Bob Room

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

60
Description

We study the infrared on-shell action of Einstein gravity in asymptotically flat spacetimes, obtaining an effective, gauge-invariant boundary action for memory and shockwave spacetimes. We show that the phase space is in both cases parameterized by the leading soft variables in asymptotically flat spacetimes, thereby obtaining an equivalence between shockwave and soft commutators. We then demonstrate that our on-shell action is equal to three quantities studied separately in the literature: (i) the soft supertranslation charge; (ii) the shockwave effective action; and (iii) the soft effective action.

Organized by

Laurent Freidel, Joshua Kirklin