English

Field Theories on Null Manifolds

High Energy Physics - Theory 2020-03-18 v2

Abstract

We argue that generic field theories defined on null manifolds should have an emergent BMS or conformal Carrollian structure. We then focus on a simple interacting conformal Carrollian theory, viz. Carrollian scalar electrodynamics. We look at weak (on-shell) and strong invariance (off-shell) of its equations of motion under conformal Carrollian symmetries. Helmholtz conditions are necessary and sufficient conditions for a set of equations to arise from a Lagrangian. We investigate whether the equations of motion of Carrollian scalar electrodynamics satisfy these conditions. Then we proposed an action for the electric sector of the theory. This action is the first example for an interacting conformal Carrollian Field Theory. The proposed action respects the finite and infinite conformal Carrollian symmetries in d = 4. We calculate conserved charges corresponding to these finite and infinite symmetries and then rewrite the conserved charges in terms of the canonical variables. We finally compute the Poisson brackets for these charges and confirm that infinite Carrollian conformal algebra is satisfied at the level of charges.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1912.09388,
  title  = {Field Theories on Null Manifolds},
  author = {Arjun Bagchi and Rudranil Basu and Aditya Mehra and Poulami Nandi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.09388},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

35 pages, v2: accepted version for publication

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:51:27.527Z