English

Quasi-Local Celestial Charges and Multipoles

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-04-16 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

We extend Penrose's quasi-local mass definition to include higher-spin charges associated with the celestial Lw1+Lw_{1+\infty} symmetries and relate them to traditional definitions of multipoles. The resulting formulae provide explicit expressions that can be computed on finite 2-surfaces, given a choice of null hypersurface. They yield a geometric definition of celestial symmetries and multipoles in generic spacetimes in terms of higher-valence solutions to the twistor equations. This, in turn, gives rise to natural flux-balance laws along the null hypersurface. We also present a first-principles phase-space derivation of these charges, starting from a twistor space action for self-dual gravity that can be identified with the standard gravitational asymptotic phase space at null infinity, performing a large gauge transformation analysis and using the Penrose transform to connect with the corresponding spacetime expressions. Finally, we formulate the spacetime analysis in the Plebanski gauge and relate the celestial symmetries to the integrability of self-dual gravity in the case of a self-dual background.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.13362,
  title  = {Quasi-Local Celestial Charges and Multipoles},
  author = {Adam Kmec and Lionel Mason and Romain Ruzziconi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.13362},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

57 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:09:53.547Z