English

Infinite-dimensional symmetries in plane wave spacetimes

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-05-07 v1

Abstract

We study the asymptotic symmetries of the Nappi-Witten spacetime in four dimensions, a plane wave arising as the Penrose limit of AdS2×S2_2\times S^2. Imposing suitable boundary conditions at large transverse distance, we uncover a new infinite-dimensional symmetry algebra allowing for non-trivial central extensions. The corresponding phase space encompasses the most general four-dimensional pp-wave metric, including in particular the Penrose limit of Kerr black holes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.12760,
  title  = {Infinite-dimensional symmetries in plane wave spacetimes},
  author = {Emilie Despontin and Stéphane Detournay and Dima Fontaine},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.12760},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

7 pages + 1 MM file