General null asymptotics and superrotation-compatible configuration spaces in $d\ge4$

TL;DR

This paper explores the extension of superrotation symmetries to higher dimensions in vacuum Einstein gravity, analyzing boundary conditions, configuration spaces, and their implications for phase space and holography.

Contribution

It generalizes superrotation-compatible boundary conditions and configuration spaces to dimensions greater than four, revealing novel features and their impact on asymptotic flatness and holography.

Findings

Configuration spaces are not asymptotically flat in the standard sense.

Initial data produce maximally polyhomogeneous metric expansions in even dimensions.

Potential links to AdS/CFT and Ricci-flat holography are proposed.

Abstract

We address the problem of consistent Campiglia-Laddha superrotations in $d>4$ by solving Bondi-Sachs gauge vacuum Einstein equations at the non-linear level with the most general boundary conditions preserving the null nature of infinity. We discuss how to generalise the boundary structure to make the configuration space compatible with supertanslation-like and superrotation-like transformations. One possibility requires that the time-independent boundary metric on the cuts of $\mathscr{I}$ is not fixed to be Einstein, while the other sticks to Einstein but time-dependent metrics. Both are novel features with respect to the four-dimensional case, where time-dependence of the two-dimensional cross-sectional metric is not required and the Einstein condition is trivially satisfied. Other cases are also discussed. These conditions imply that the configuration spaces are not asymptotically flat in the standard sense. We discuss the implications on the construction of the phase space and the relationship with soft scattering theorems. We show that in even spacetime dimensions, the initial data compatible with such asymptotic symmetries produce maximally polyhomogeneous expansions of the metric and we advance a potential interpretation of this structure in terms of AdS/CFT and realizations of Ricci-flat holography.