No Arabic abstract
We revisit the theory of null shells in general relativity, with a particular emphasis on null shells placed at horizons of black holes. We study in detail the considerable freedom that is available in the case that one solders two metrics together across null hypersurfaces (such as Killing horizons) for which the induced metric is invariant under translations along the null generators. In this case the group of soldering transformations turns out to be infinite dimensional, and these solderings create non-trivial horizon shells containing both massless matter and impulsive gravitational wave components. We also rephrase this result in the language of Carrollian symmetry groups. To illustrate this phenomenon we discuss in detail the example of shells on the horizon of the Schwarzschild black hole (with equal interior and exterior mass), uncovering a rich classical structure at the horizon and deriving an explicit expression for the general horizon shell energy-momentum tensor. In the special case of BMS-like soldering supertranslations we find a conserved shell-energy that is strikingly similar to the standard expression for asymptotic BMS supertranslation charges, suggesting a direct relation between the physical properties of these horizon shells and the recently proposed BMS supertranslation hair of a black hole.
When two spacetimes are stitched across a null-shell placed at the horizon of a black hole BMS-supertranslation like soldering freedom arises if one demands the induced metric on the horizon shell should remain invariant under the translations generated by the null generators of the shell. We revisit this phenomenon at the horizon of rotating shells and obtain BMS like symmetries. We further show that superrotation like soldering symmetries in the form of conformal isometries can emerge whenever the degenerate metric of any null hypersurface admits a dependency on null (degenerate direction) coordinate. This kind of conformal isometry can also appear for a null surface situated very close to the horizon of black holes. We also study the intrinsic properties of different kinds of horizon shells considered in this note.
We define and study asymptotic Killing and conformal Killing vectors in $d$-dimensional Minkowski, (A)dS, $mathbb{R}times S^{d-1}$ and ${rm AdS}_2times S^{d-2}$. We construct the associated quantum charges for an arbitrary CFT and show they satisfy a closed algebra that includes the BMS as a sub-algebra (i.e. supertranslations and superrotations) plus a novel transformation we call `superdilations. We study representations of this algebra in the Hilbert space of the CFT, as well as the action of the finite transformations obtained by exponentiating the charges. In the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, we propose a bulk holographic description in semi-classical gravity that reproduces the results obtained from CFT computations. We discuss the implications of our results regarding quantum hairs of asymptotically flat (near-)extremal black holes.
We address the question of the uniqueness of the Schwarzschild black hole by considering the following question: How many meaningful solutions of the Einstein equations exist that agree with the Schwarzschild solution (with a fixed mass m) everywhere except maybe on a codimension one hypersurface? The perhaps surprising answer is that the solution is unique (and uniquely the Schwarzschild solution everywhere in spacetime) *unless* the hypersurface is the event horizon of the Schwarzschild black hole, in which case there are actually an infinite number of distinct solutions. We explain this result and comment on some of the possible implications for black hole physics.
We present the quantum $kappa$-deformation of BMS symmetry, by generalizing the lightlike $kappa$-Poincare Hopf algebra. On the technical level, our analysis relies on the fact that the lightlike $kappa$-deformation of Poincare algebra is given by a twist and the lightlike deformation of any algebra containing Poincare as a subalgebra can be done with the help of the same twisting element. We briefly comment on the physical relevance of the obtained $kappa$-BMS Hopf algebra as a possible asymptotic symmetry of quantum gravity.
Recently it was conjectured that a certain infinite-dimensional diagonal subgroup of BMS supertranslations acting on past and future null infinity (${mathscr I}^-$ and ${mathscr I}^+$) is an exact symmetry of the quantum gravity ${cal S}$-matrix, and an associated Ward identity was derived. In this paper we show that this supertranslation Ward identity is precisely equivalent to Weinbergs soft graviton theorem. Along the way we construct the canonical generators of supertranslations at ${mathscr I}^pm$, including the relevant soft graviton contributions. Boundary conditions at the past and future of ${mathscr I}^pm$ and a correspondingly modified Dirac bracket are required. The soft gravitons enter as boundary modes and are manifestly the Goldstone bosons of spontaneously broken supertranslation invariance.