Triangle Seminars
Monday, 8 Jun 2015
Warped Conformal Field Theory as Lower Spin Gravity
Diego Hofman
(UVA)
Abstract:
Two dimensional Warped Conformal Field Theories (WCFTs) may represent the simplest examples of field theories without Lorentz invariance that can be described holographically. As such they constitute a natural window into holography in non AdS space-times, including the near horizon geometry of generic extremal black holes. I’ll explain that WCFTs posses a type of boost symmetry. Using this insight, I’ll discuss how to couple these theories to background geometry. This geometry is not Riemannian. We call it Warped Geometry and it turns out to be a variant of a Newton-Cartan structure with additional scaling symmetries. With this formalism the equivalent of Weyl invariance in these theories will be discussed as well as examples of WCFTs. Lastly I’ll present a systematic description of the holographic duals of WCFTs. I’ll argue that the minimal setup is not Einstein gravity but an SL(2,R) x U(1) Chern-Simons Theory, which we call Lower Spin Gravity.
Two dimensional Warped Conformal Field Theories (WCFTs) may represent the simplest examples of field theories without Lorentz invariance that can be described holographically. As such they constitute a natural window into holography in non AdS space-times, including the near horizon geometry of generic extremal black holes. I’ll explain that WCFTs posses a type of boost symmetry. Using this insight, I’ll discuss how to couple these theories to background geometry. This geometry is not Riemannian. We call it Warped Geometry and it turns out to be a variant of a Newton-Cartan structure with additional scaling symmetries. With this formalism the equivalent of Weyl invariance in these theories will be discussed as well as examples of WCFTs. Lastly I’ll present a systematic description of the holographic duals of WCFTs. I’ll argue that the minimal setup is not Einstein gravity but an SL(2,R) x U(1) Chern-Simons Theory, which we call Lower Spin Gravity.
Posted by: IC