English

Soft Algebras in AdS$_4$ from Light Ray Operators in CFT$_3$

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-04-08 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

Flat Minkowski space (M4^4) and AdS4_4 can both be conformally mapped to the Einstein cylinder. The maps may be judiciously chosen so that some null generators of the I+\mathcal{I}^+ boundary of M4^4 coincide with antipodally-terminating null geodesic segments on the boundary of AdS4_4. Conformally invariant nonabelian gauge theories in M4^4 have an asymptotic SS-algebra generated by a tower of soft gluons given by weighted null line integrals on I+\mathcal{I}^+. We show that, under the conformal map to AdS4_4, the leading soft gluons are dual to light transforms of the conserved global symmetry currents in the boundary CFT3_3. The tower of light ray operators obtained from the SO(3,2)SO(3,2) descendants of this light transform realize a full set of generators of the SS-algebra in the boundary CFT3_3. This provides a direct connection between holographic symmetry algebras in M4^4 and AdS4_4.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.00096,
  title  = {Soft Algebras in AdS$_4$ from Light Ray Operators in CFT$_3$},
  author = {Ahmed Sheta and Andrew Strominger and Adam Tropper and Hongji Wei},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.00096},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

24 pages, no figure