This thesis is dedicated to the study of quasi-local boundary in quantum gravity in the 3D space-time case. This research takes root in the holographic principle, which conjectures that the geometry and the dynamic of a space-time region can be entirely described by a theory living on the boundary of this given region. The most studied case of this principle is the AdS/CFT correspondence, where the quantum fluctuations of an asymptotically AdS space are described by a conformal field theory living at spatial infinity, invariant under the Virasoro group. The philosophy applied in this thesis differs from the AdS/CFT case. I focus on the case of quasi-local holography, i.e. for a bounded region of space-time with a boundary at a finite distance. The objective is to clarify the bulk-boundary relation in quantum gravity described by the Ponzano-Regge model, defining a model for 3D gravity via a discrete path integral.
I present the first perturbative and exact computations of the Ponzano-Regge amplitude on a torus with a 2D boundary state. After the presentation of the general framework for the 3D amplitude in terms of the 2D boundary state, I consider the 2D torus case, with application in the study of the thermodynamics of the BTZ black hole. First, the 2D boundary is described by a coherent spin network state in the semi-classical regime. The stationary phase approximation allows to recover in the asymptotic limit the usual amplitude for 3D quantum gravity as the character of the symmetry of asymptotically flat gravity, the BMS group. Then I introduce a new type of coherent boundary state, which allows an exact evaluation of the amplitude for 3D quantum gravity. I obtain a complex regularization of the BMS character. The possibility of this exact computation suggests the existence of a (quasi)-integrable structure, linked to the symmetries of 3D quantum gravity with 2D finite boundary.
We consider holography of two pp-wave metrics in conformal gravity, their one point functions, and asymptotic symmetries. One of the metrics is a generalization of the standard pp-waves in Einstein gravity to conformal gravity. The holography of this metric shows that within conformal gravity one can have realised solution which has non-vanishing partially massless response (PMR) tensor even for vanishing subleading term in the Fefferman-Graham expansion (i.e. Neumann boundary conditions), and vice-versa.
We conjecture that, in asymptotically anti-de Sitter space, two solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation that coincide asymptotically must also coincide in the bulk. This suggests that the essential elements of holography are already present in canonical gravity. Our argument sheds light on why holography works only in gravitational theories, and also on the significance of anti-de Sitter boundary conditions.
We review the approach to quantum gravity based on supersymmetry, strings, and holography. This includes a survey of black holes in higher-dimensions, supersymmetry and supergravity, as well as string theory, black hole microstates, and the gauge/gravity duality. This presentation will appear as a chapter in "General Relativity and Gravitation: A Centennial Perspective", to be published by Cambridge University Press.
We calculate the free energy from the on-shell action for topologically massive gravity with negative and vanishing cosmological constant, thereby providing a first principles derivation of the free energy of Banados-Teitelboim-Zanelli (BTZ) black holes and flat space cosmologies. We summarize related recent checks of flat space holography.
This thesis is divided in two separate parts, the first concerned with gravitational aspects of Lovelock theories, the second with some of their holographic applications.
We take the first steps towards non-AdS holography in higher spin gravity. Namely, we propose a variational principle for generic 3-dimensional higher spin gravity that accommodates asymptotic backgrounds beyond AdS, like asymptotically Schrodinger, Lifshitz or warped AdS spacetimes. As examples we study in some detail the four sl(2) embeddings of spin-4 gravity and provide associated geometries, including an asymptotic Lifshitz black hole.
We show that holography arises naturally in the context of spherically symmetric loop quantum gravity. The result is not dependent on detailed assumptions about the dynamics of the theory being considered. It ties strongly the amount of information contained in a region of space to the tight mathematical underpinnings of loop quantum geometry, at least in this particular context.
Basic aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence are studied in the framework of 3-dimensional gravity with torsion. After choosing a consistent holographic ansatz, we formulate an improved approach to the Noether--Ward identities for the boundary theory. The method is applied first to the topological Mielke--Baekler model, and then to the more interesting (parity-preserving) 3-dimensional gravity with propagating torsion. In both cases, we find the finite holographic energy-momentum and spin currents and obtain the associated (anomalous) Noether--Ward identities.
We provide a holographic description of two-dimensional dilaton gravity with Anti-de Sitter boundary conditions. We find that the asymptotic symmetry algebra consists of a single copy of the Virasoro algebra with non-vanishing central charge and point out difficulties with the standard canonical treatment. We generalize our results to higher spin theories and thus provide the first examples of two-dimensional higher spin gravity with holographic description. For spin-3 gravity we find that the asymptotic symmetry algebra is a single copy of the W_3-algebra.
Wormholes are intriguing classical solutions in General Relativity, that have fascinated theoretical physicists for decades. In recent years, especially in Holography, gravitationalWormhole geometries have found a new life in many theoretical ideas related to quantum aspects of gravity. These ideas primarily revolve around aspects of quantum entanglement and quantum information in (semi-classical) gravity. This is an introductory and pedagogical review of Wormholes and their recent applications in Gauge-Gravity duality and related ideas.
We investigate a holographic relation between Einstein Gauss-Bonnet gravity in $n$ dimensions and its dual field theory in ($n-1$) dimensions. We briefly review the AdS/CFT correspondence for the entropy in the $n$-dimensional Einstein gravity and consider its extension to the case of the $n$-dimensional Einstein Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We show that there is a holographic relation between entropies of an Einstein Gauss-Bonnet black hole in the bulk and the corresponding radiation on the brane in the high temperature limit. In particular, we find that the Hubble entropy evaluated when the brane c…
We analyse holographic field theory dual to Lovelock Chern-Simons AdS Gravity in higher dimensions using first order formalism. We first find asymptotic symmetries in the AdS sector showing that they consist of local translations, local Lorentz rotations, dilatations and non-Abelian gauge transformations. Then, we compute $1$-point functions of energy-momentum and spin currents in a dual conformal field theory and write Ward identities. We find that the holographic theory possesses Weyl anomaly and also breaks non-Abelian gauge symmetry at the quantum level.
We present the general algorithm to establish the classical and quantum asymptotic symmetry algebra for non-AdS higher spin gravity and implement it for the specific example of spin-3 gravity in the non-principal embedding with Lobachevsky (H^2xR) boundary conditions. The asymptotic symmetry algebra for this example consists of a quantum W_3^2 (Polyakov-Bershadsky) and an affine u(1) algebra. We show that unitary representations of the quantum W_3^2 algebra exist only for two values of its central charge, the trivial c=0 "theory" and the simple c=1 theory.
We investigate the thermodynamics of AdS black holes in Generalized Quasitopological Gravity with and without electric charge, concentrating on the version of the theory that is cubic in curvature. We study new aspects of Hawking-Page transitions that occur for these black holes. Working within the framework of black hole chemistry, we find a variety of familiar and new critical behaviour and phase transitions in four and higher dimensions for the charged black holes. We also consider some holographic aspects of our work, demonstrating how the ratio of viscosity to entropy is modified by inclu…
We study two-dimensional Einstein-aether (or equivalently Hořava-Lifshitz) gravity, which has an $AdS_2$ solution. We examine various properties of this solution in the context of holography. We first show that the asymptotic symmetry group is the full set of time reparametrizations, the one-dimensional conformal group. At the same time there are configurations with finite energy and temperature, which indicate a violation of the Ward identity associated with one-dimensional conformal invariance. These solutions are characterized by a universal causal horizon and we show that the associated en…
We derive the detailed balance condition as a solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation in the Horava-Lifshitz gravity. This result leads us to propose the existence of the d-dimensional quantum field theory on the future boundary of the (d+1)-dimensional Horava-Lifshitz gravity from the viewpoint of the holographic renormalization group. We also obtain a Ricci flow equation of the boundary theory as the holographic RG flow, which is the Hamilton equation in the bulk gravity, by tuning parameters in the theory.
In this paper, we study the effective action, the mass spectrum and the first law of entanglement entropy for a novel doubly holographic model called wedge holography. We work out the effective action of quantum gravity on the branes. In the perturbative formulation, it is given by an infinite sum of Pauli-Fierz actions. In the non-perturbative formulation, the effective action is composed of a higher derivative gravity and a matter action. Usually, a higher derivative gravity can be renormalizable but suffers the ghost problem. For our case, since the effective theory on the brane is equivale…
In this paper we propose a holographic duality for classical gravity on a three-dimensional de Sitter space. We first show that a pair of SU$(2)$ Chern-Simons gauge theories reproduces the classical partition function of Einstein gravity on a Euclidean de Sitter space, namely $\mathbb{S}^3$, when we take the limit where the level $k$ approaches $-2$. This implies that the CFT dual of gravity on a de Sitter space at the leading semi-classical order is given by an SU$(2)$ Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) model in the large central charge limit $k\to -2$. We give another evidence for this in the light of…
Many non-relativistic Quantum Field Theories with conserved particle number share a common set of symmetries: time dependent spatial diffeomorphisms acting on the background metric and U(1) invariance acting on the background fields which couple to particle number. Here we use these symmetries to deduce a gravity dual for any such theory in terms of a non-relativistic theory of gravity, a variant of Horava gravity. This duality allows the extension of holography to generic non-relativistic field theories. As Horava gravity is presumed to be a consistent quantum theory, this duality also allows…
We consider the Moyal deformation of self-dual gravity. In the conformal primary basis, holomorphic collinear limits of the amplitudes of this theory show that it enjoys a perturbatively exact symmetry algebra $LW_\wedge$ that generalises $Lw_\wedge$, the loop algebra of the wedge algebra of $w_{1+\infty}$, which appears in self-dual gravity.
Holography and the Swampland: Constraints on Quantum Gravity from Holographic Principles
Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA)（大学间天文学与天体物理学中心）；Department of Physics, K.L.S. College, Nawada, Magadh University（那达德KLS学院物理系，马加德大学）；Center for Theoretical Physics, Tomsk State Pedagogical University（托木斯克国立师范学院理论物理中心）；National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University（托木斯克理工大学国家研究型大学）；Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Ciências Exatas e da Natureza, NICEN, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco（伯南布哥联邦大学精确与自然科学跨学科核心）；Department of Nuclear Physics, Institute of Physics, University of São Paulo（圣保罗大学物理研究所核物理系）
The holographic renormalization group (RG) flows in certain self-dual two dimensional QFT's models are studied. They are constructed as holographic duals to specific New Massive 3d Gravity (NMG) models coupled to scalar matter with "partially self-dual" superpotentials. The standard holographic RG constructions allow us to derive the exact form of their $β$- functions in terms of the corresponding NMG's domain walls solutions. By imposing invariance of the free energy, the central function and of the anomalous dimensions under specific matter field's duality transformation, we have found the c…
We consider counterterms for odd dimensional holographic CFTs. These counterterms are derived by demanding cut-off independence of the CFT partition function on $S^d$ and $S^1 \times S^{d-1}$. The same choice of counterterms leads to a cut-off independent Schwarzschild black hole entropy. When treated as independent actions, these counterterm actions resemble critical theories of gravity, i.e., higher curvature gravity theories where the additional massive spin-2 modes become massless. Equivalently, in the context of AdS/CFT, these are theories where at least one of the central charges associa…
Inspired by the general relation between the boundary global symmetry and the bulk gauge symmetry in AdS/CFT, we reformulate the $d+1$ dimensional AdS gravity theory as a $SO(2,d)$ gauge theory. In this formalism, the pull back of the bulk equation of motion onto a co-dimension one hypersurface $Σ$ can be naturally related to the $SO(2,d)$ conservation law under a local energy scale in the dual CFT. The consistency of CFT requires that the $SO(2,d)$ covariant anomaly vanishes at arbitrary scale. After imposing a covariant area law as the renormalization condition, the vanishing of $SO(2,d)$ an…
Some thermodynamical properties of Lovelock gravity are discussed in several space-time dimensions, the holographic principle being one of the ingredients of the discussion. As it turns out, the area law and the brickwall method, though correct for the Einstein-Hilbert theory, may fail to work in general.
We consider holographic entanglement entropy in higher derivative gravity theories. Recently Lewkowycz and Maldacena arXiv:1304.4926 have provided a method to derive the equations for the entangling surface from first principles. We use this method to compute the entangling surface in four derivative gravity. Certain interesting differences compared to the two derivative case are pointed out. For Gauss-Bonnet gravity, we show that in the regime where this method is applicable, the resulting equations coincide with proposals in the literature as well as with what follows from considerations of …
One of the most exciting things in recent theoretical physics is the suspicion that gravity may be holographic, dual to some sort of quantum field theory living on the boundary with one less dimension. Such a suspicion has been supported mainly by a variety of specific examples from string theory. This paper is intended to purport the holographic gravity from a different perspective. Namely we propose that such a holography can actually be observed within the context of Einstein's gravity, where neither is spacetime required to be asymptotically AdS nor the boundary to be located at conformal …
The issues of holography and possible links with gauge theories in spacetime physics is discussed, in an approach quite distinct from the more restricted AdS-CFT correspondence. A particular notion of holography in the context of black hole thermodynamics is derived (rather than conjectured) from rather elementary considerations, which also leads to a criterion of thermal stability of radiant black holes, without resorting to specific classical metrics. For black holes that obey this criterion, the canonical entropy is expressed in terms of the microcanonical entropy of an Isolated Horizon whi…
We discuss the holography and entropy bounds in Gauss-Bonnet gravity theory. By applying a Geroch process to an arbitrary spherically symmetric black hole, we show that the Bekenstein entropy bound always keeps its form as $S_{\rm B}=2πE R$, independent of gravity theories. As a result, the Bekenstein-Verlinde bound also remains unchanged. Along the Verlinde's approach, we obtain the Bekenstein-Hawking bound and Hubble bound, which are different from those in Einstein gravity. Furthermore, we note that when $HR=1$, the three cosmological entropy bounds become identical as in the case of Einste…
We present a detailed analysis of the 3+1-split formalism of gravity in the presence of a cosmological constant. The formalism helps revealing the intimate connection between holography and the initial value formulation of gravity. We show that the various methods of holographic subtraction of divergences correspond just to different transformations of the canonical variables, such that the initial value problem is properly set up at the boundary. The renormalized boundary energy momentum tensor is a component of the Weyl tensor.
We show that a $3d$ sourced conformal Carrollian field theory has the right kinematic properties to holographically describe gravity in $4d$ asymptotically flat spacetime. The external sources encode the leaks of gravitational radiation at null infinity. The Ward identities of this theory are shown to reproduce those of the $2d$ celestial CFT after relating Carrollian to celestial operators. This suggests a new set of interplays between gravity in asymptotically flat spacetime, sourced conformal Carrollian field theory and celestial CFT.
We propose Lobachevsky boundary conditions that lead to asymptotically H^2xR solutions. As an example we check their consistency in conformal Chern-Simons gravity. The canonical charges are quadratic in the fields, but nonetheless integrable, conserved and finite. The asymptotic symmetry algebra consists of one copy of the Virasoro algebra with central charge c=24k, where k is the Chern-Simons level, and an affine u(1). We find also regular non-perturbative states and show that none of them corresponds to black hole solutions. We attempt to calculate the one-loop partition function, find a rem…
The idea of holography in gravity arose from the fact that the entropy of black holes is given by their surface area. The holography encountered in gauge/gravity duality has no such relation however; the boundary surface can be placed at an arbitrary location in AdS space and its area does not give the entropy of the bulk. The essential issues are also different between the two cases: in black holes we get Hawking radiation from the `holographic surface' which leads to the information issue, while in gauge/gravity duality there is no such radiation from the boundary surface. To resolve the inf…
We argue that Horava-Lifshitz (HL) gravity provides the minimal holographic dual for Lifshitz-type field theories with anisotropic scaling and dynamical exponent z. First we show that Lifshitz spacetimes are vacuum solutions of HL gravity, without need for additional matter. Then we perform holographic renormalization of HL gravity, and show how it reproduces the full structure of the z=2 anisotropic Weyl anomaly in dual field theories in 2+1 dimensions, while its minimal relativistic gravity counterpart yields only one of two independent central charges in the anomaly.
We consider spherical gravitational perturbations of AdS4 space-time satisfying general boundary conditions at spatial infinity. Using the holographic renormalization method, we compute the energy-momentum tensor and show that it can always be cast in the form of Cotton tensor for a dual boundary metric. In particular, axial and polar perturbations obeying the same boundary conditions for the effective Schrodinger wave-functions exhibit an energy-momentum/Cotton tensor duality at conformal infinity. We demonstrate explicitly that this is holographic manifestation of the electric/magnetic duali…
We employ gauge-gravity duality to study the backreaction effect of 4-dimensional large-$N$ quantum field theories on constant-curvature backgrounds, and in particular de Sitter space-time. The field theories considered are holographic QFTs, dual to RG flows between UV and IR CFTs. We compute the holographic QFT contribution to the gravitational effective action for 4d Einstein manifold backgrounds. We find that for a given value of the cosmological constant $λ$, there generically exist two backreacted constant-curvature solutions, as long as $λ< λ_{\textrm{max}} \sim M_p^2 / N^2$, otherwise n…
We formulate four-dimensional conformal gravity with (Anti-)de Sitter boundary conditions that are weaker than Starobinsky boundary conditions, allowing for an asymptotically subleading Rindler term concurrent with a recent model for gravity at large distances. We prove the consistency of the variational principle and derive the holographic response functions. One of them is the conformal gravity version of the Brown-York stress tensor, the other is a `partially massless response'. The on-shell action and response functions are finite and do not require holographic renormalization. Finally, we…
We present the analytical calculation of entanglement entropy for a class of two dimensional field theories governed by the symmetries of the Galilean conformal algebra, thus providing a rare example of such an exact computation. These field theories are the putative holographic duals to theories of gravity in three-dimensional asymptotically flat spacetimes. We provide a check of our field theory answers by an analysis of geodesics. We also exploit the Chern-Simons formulation of three-dimensional gravity and adapt recent proposals of calculating entanglement entropy by Wilson lines in this c…
As was recently pointed out by Cadoni, a certain class of two-dimensional gravitational theories will exhibit (black hole) thermodynamic behavior that is reminiscent of a free field theory. In the current letter, a direct correspondence is established between these two-dimensional models and the strongly curved regime of (arbitrary-dimensional) anti-de Sitter gravity. On this basis, we go on to speculatively argue that two-dimensional gravity may ultimatley be utilized for identifying and perhaps even understanding holographic dualities.
I review recent work toward constructing, via five-dimensional holographic duals, four-dimensional theories in which spin-2 states (gravitons) are emergent. The basic idea is to extend to gravity model-building the applications of holographic duality to phenomenology construction.
We investigate holography on an (n-1)-dimensional brane embedded in a background of AdS black holes, in n-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We demonstrate that for a critical brane near the AdS boundary, the Friedmann equation corresponds to that of the standard cosmology driven by a CFT dual to the AdS bulk. We show that there is no holographic description for non-critical branes, or when the brane is further away from the AdS boundary. We then derive a Cardy-Verlinde formula for the dual CFT on the critical brane near the boundary. This gives us insight into the remarkable correspondence bet…
A new approach to black hole thermodynamics is proposed in Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG), by defining a new black hole partition function, followed by analytic continuations of Barbero-Immirzi parameter to $γ\in i\mathbb{R}$ and Chern-Simons level to $k\in i\mathbb{R}$. The analytic continued partition function has remarkable features: The black hole entropy $S=A/4\ell_P^2$ is reproduced correctly for infinitely many $γ= iη$, at least for $η\in\mathbb{Z}\setminus\{0\}$. The near-horizon Unruh temperature emerges as the pole of partition function. Interestingly, by analytic continuation the partit…
Holography suggests a considerable reduction of degrees of freedom in theories with gravity. However it seems to be difficult to understand how holography could be realized in a closed re--contracting universe. In this letter we claim that a scenario which achieves that goal will eliminate all spatial degrees of freedom. This would require a different concept of quantum mechanics and would imply an intriguing increase of power for the natural laws.
