Quantum Gravity Beyond the Bulk

TL;DR

This paper develops an infrared-focused formulation of quantum gravity for external observers, revealing how boundary charges and Berry phases influence observable dynamics and state entropies.

Contribution

It introduces an asymptotic proper-time gauge framework where quantum evolution is governed by boundary charges, incorporating Berry connections and infrared holonomies.

Findings

Infrared boundary charges govern quantum dynamics at spatial infinity.

Berry phases induce geometric contributions to the evolution operator.

Infrared holonomies dominate the entropy of reduced states.

Abstract

We propose an infrared and asymptotic formulation of quantum gravity adapted to external observers. In an asymptotic proper-time gauge, the physical generator of evolution reduces to the Regge--Teitelboim boundary charge, so that quantum dynamics is governed by infrared gravitational configurations at spatial infinity. In the weak-field regime this leads naturally to a Born--Oppenheimer separation between slow asymptotic data and fast bulk fluctuations. Integrating out the latter induces a Berry connection on the space of admissible configurations, whose holonomy characterizes infrared-dressed gravitational states. Observable evolution is then governed by an infrared effective Hamiltonian obtained after integrating out fast bulk fluctuations, with the geometric (Berry) contribution entering as part of the resulting evolution operator on the space of asymptotic configurations. Tracing over unresolvable degrees of freedom induces a reduced density matrix whose entropy is dominated by global infrared holonomy sectors rather than local bulk dynamics.