Abstract
Starting from an analysis of four-dimensional asymptotically flat gravity in first order formulation, we show that superrotation reparametrization modes are governed by an Alekseev-Shatashvili action on the celestial sphere. This two-dimensional conformal theory describes spontaneous symmetry breaking of Virasoro superrotations together with the explicit symmetry breaking of more general Diff(\( {\mathcal{S}}^2 \)) superrotations. We arrive at this result by first reformulating the asymptotic field equations and symmetries of the radiative vacuum sector in terms of a Chern-Simons theory at null infinity, and subsequently performing a Hamiltonian reduction of this theory onto the celestial sphere.
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Nguyen, K., Salzer, J. The effective action of superrotation modes. J. High Energ. Phys. 2021, 108 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP02(2021)108
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP02(2021)108