Recently a boundary energy-momentum tensor $T_{zz}$ has been constructed from the soft graviton operator for any 4D quantum theory of gravity in asymptotically flat space. Up to an anomaly which is one-loop exact, $T_{zz}$ generates a Virasoro action on the 2D celestial sphere at null infinity. Here we show by explicit construction that the effects of the IR divergent part of the anomaly can be eliminated by a one-loop renormalization that shifts $T_{zz}$.
In recent years several approaches to quantum gravity have found evidence for a scale dependent spectral dimension of space-time varying from four at large scales to two at small scales of order of the Planck length. The first evidence came from numerical results on four-dimensional causal dynamical triangulations (CDT) [Ambjorn et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 (2005) 171]. Since then little progress has been made in analytically understanding the numerical results coming from the CDT approach and showing that they remain valid when taking the continuum limit. Here we argue that the spectral dimension can be determined from a model with fewer degrees of freedom obtained from the CDTs by radial reduction. In the resulting toy model we can take the continuum limit analytically and obtain a scale dependent spectral dimension varying from four to two with scale and having functional behaviour exactly of the form which was conjectured on the basis of the numerical results.
We use the subleading soft-graviton theorem to construct an operator $T_{zz}$ whose insertion in the four-dimensional tree-level quantum gravity $mathcal{S}$-matrix obeys the Virasoro-Ward identities of the energy momentum tensor of a two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT$_2$). The celestial sphere at Minkowskian null infinity plays the role of the Euclidean sphere of the CFT$_2$, with the Lorentz group acting as the unbroken $SL(2,mathbb{C})$ subgroup.
We investigate the neutral AdS black-hole solution in the consistent $Drightarrow4$ Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity proposed in [K. Aoki, M.A. Gorji, and S. Mukohyama, Phys. Lett. B {bf 810}, 135843 (2020)] and construct the gravity duals of ($2+1$)-dimensional superconductors with Gauss-Bonnet corrections in the probe limit. We find that the curvature correction has a more subtle effect on the scalar condensates in the s-wave superconductor in ($2+1$)-dimensions, which is different from the finding in the higher-dimensional superconductors that the higher curvature correction makes the scalar hair more difficult to be developed in the full parameter space. However, in the p-wave case, we observe that the higher curvature correction always makes it harder for the vector condensates to form in various dimensions. Moreover, we note that the higher curvature correction results in the larger deviation from the expected relation in the gap frequency $omega_g/T_capprox 8$ in both ($2+1$)-dimensional s-wave and p-wave models.
In the context of the quest for a holographic formulation of quantum gravity, we investigate the basic boundary theory structure for loop quantum gravity. In 3+1 space-time dimensions, the boundary theory lives on the 2+1-dimensional time-like boundary and is supposed to describe the time evolution of the edge modes living on the 2-dimensional boundary of space, i.e. the space-time corner. Focusing on electric excitations -- quanta of area -- living on the corner, we formulate their dynamics in terms of classical spinor variables and we show that the coupling constants of a polynomial Hamiltonian can be understood as the components of a background boundary 2+1-metric. This leads to a deeper conjecture of a correspondence between boundary Hamiltonian and boundary metric states. We further show that one can reformulate the quanta of area data in terms of a SL(2,C) connection, transporting the spinors on the boundary surface and whose SU(2) component would define magnetic excitations (tangential Ashtekar-Barbero connection), thereby opening the door to writing the loop quantum gravity boundary dynamics as a 2+1-dimensional SL(2,C) gauge theory.
We construct the holographic superconductors away from the probe limit in the consistent $Drightarrow4$ Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We observe that, both for the ground state and excited states, the critical temperature first decreases then increases as the curvature correction tends towards the Chern-Simons limit in a backreaction dependent fashion. However, the decrease of the backreaction, the increase of the scalar mass, or the increase of the number of nodes will weaken this subtle effect of the curvature correction. Moreover, for the curvature correction approaching the Chern-Simons limit, we find that the gap frequency $omega_g/T_c$ of the conductivity decreases first and then increases when the backreaction increases in a scalar mass dependent fashion, which is different from the finding in the ($3+1$)-dimensional superconductors that increasing backreaction increases $omega_g/T_c$ in the full parameter space. The combination of the Gauss-Bonnet gravity and backreaction provides richer physics in the scalar condensates and conductivity in the ($2+1$)-dimensional superconductors.