English

General relativity as a two-dimensional CFT

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2015-12-02 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

The tree-level scattering amplitudes of general relativity encode the full non-linearity of the Einstein field equations. Yet remarkably compact expressions for these amplitudes have been found which seem unrelated to a perturbative expansion of the Einstein-Hilbert action. This suggests an entirely different description of GR which makes this on-shell simplicity manifest. Taking our cue from the tree-level amplitudes, we discuss how such a description can be found. The result is a formulation of GR in terms of a solvable two-dimensional CFT, with the Einstein equations emerging as quantum consistency conditions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1505.05679,
  title  = {General relativity as a two-dimensional CFT},
  author = {Tim Adamo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.05679},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

6 pages, no figures. Honorable Mention in the 2015 Gravity Research Foundation Essay Competition

R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:38:39.554Z