# Edge modes and corner ambiguities in 3d Chern-Simons theory and gravity

## TL;DR

This paper develops a systematic method to identify boundary degrees of freedom in gauge theories by extending the covariant Hamiltonian formalism, demonstrated through Chern-Simons theory and 3D gravity, revealing boundary observables with known algebraic structures.

## Contribution

It introduces a gauge-invariant extension of the phase space to uncover boundary observables and symmetries in gauge theories, applicable to a broad class of Lagrangians.

## Key findings

- Boundary observables satisfy Kac-Moody affine algebras
- Extended phase space captures dynamical boundary degrees of freedom
- Framework applicable to Abelian Chern-Simons and 3D gravity

## Abstract

Boundaries in gauge field theories are known to be the locus of a wealth of interesting phenomena, as illustrated for example by the holographic principle or by the AdS/CFT and bulk-boundary correspondences. In particular, it has been acknowledged for quite some time that boundaries can break gauge invariance, and thereby turn gauge degrees of freedom into physical ones. There is however no known systematic way of identifying these degrees of freedom and possible associated boundary observables. Following recent work by Donnelly and Freidel, we show that this can be achieved by extending the covariant Hamiltonian formalism so as to make it gauge-invariant under arbitrary large gauge transformations. This can be done at the expense of extending the phase space by introducing new boundary fields, which in turn determine new boundary symmetries and observables. We present the general framework behind this construction, and find the conditions under which it can be applied to an arbitrary Lagrangian. By studying the examples of Abelian Chern-Simons theory and first order three-dimensional gravity, we then show that the new boundary observables satisfy the known corresponding Kac-Moody affine algebras. This shows that this new extended phase space formulation does indeed properly describe the dynamical boundary degrees of freedom, and gives credit to the results which have been previously derived in the case of diffeomorphism symmetry. We expect that this systematic understanding of the boundary symmetries will play a major role for the quantization of gravity in finite regions.