Deformed Heisenberg charges in three-dimensional gravity

TL;DR

This paper explores a specific boundary condition in three-dimensional gravity, leading to a deformed Heisenberg algebra of surface charges and insights into black hole entropy without a central charge.

Contribution

It introduces an extended phase space with holomorphic maps, derives a deformed Heisenberg algebra, and analyzes the boundary conformal symmetry with zero central charge.

Findings

Deformed Heisenberg algebra for surface charges

No central charge in the conformal diffeomorphism algebra

Black hole entropy can be derived despite non-unitary boundary CFT

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the bulk plus boundary phase space for three-dimensional gravity with negative cosmological constant for a particular choice of conformal boundary conditions: the conformal class of the induced metric at the boundary is kept fixed and the mean extrinsic curvature is constrained to be one. Such specific conformal boundary conditions define so-called Bryant surfaces, which can be classified completely in terms of holomorphic maps from Riemann surfaces into the spinor bundle. To study the observables and gauge symmetries of the resulting bulk plus boundary system, we introduce an extended phase space, where these holomorphic maps are now part of the gravitational bulk plus boundary phase space. The physical phase space is obtained by introducing two sets of Kac-Moody currents, which are constrained to vanish. The constraints are second-class and the corresponding Dirac bracket yields an infinite-dimensional deformation of the Heisenberg algebra for the spinor-valued surface charges. Finally, we compute the Poisson algebra among the generators of conformal diffeomorphisms and demonstrate that there is no central charge. Although the central charge vanishes and the boundary CFT is likely non-unitary, we will argue that a version of the Cardy formula still applies in this context, such that the entropy of the BTZ black hole can be derived from the degeneracy of the eigenstates of quasi-local energy.