Superrotations are Linkages
Abstract
We show that superrotations can be described using the geometric conformal completion method of Penrose. In particular, superrotation charges can be described and calculated using the linkage method of Geroch and Winicour. Whether superrotation charges are calculated using the coordinate based Bondi formalism or the geometric Penrose formalism, the fact that the superrotation blows up at a point makes the superrotation charge formally ill defined. Nonetheless, we show that it can be made well defined through a regularization procedure devised by Flanagan and Nichols.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2507.04245,
title = {Superrotations are Linkages},
author = {Ratindranath Akhoury and Arielle Schutz and David Garfinkle},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.04245},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
17 pages, 0 figures, corrected name of institute, added DOE grant number, added more references to earlier work, added new section on fluxes, added comments on covariance of result