Unifying soft and hard dynamics: The hard current algebra in celestial holography
High Energy Physics - Theory
2026-01-16 v1
Abstract
Soft current algebras capture the infrared structure of scattering in asymptotically flat spacetimes, but an analogous algebraic description of finite-energy dynamics has been missing. We uncover an infinite-dimensional hard current algebra that encodes finite-energy contributions to scattering and implies novel Ward identities. The soft current algebras are not independent but arise naturally from the hard ones. This provides a unified algebraic framework underlying quantum theory in flat spacetime.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2601.10601,
title = {Unifying soft and hard dynamics: The hard current algebra in celestial holography},
author = {Reiko Liu and Wen-Jie Ma},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.10601},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
8+3 pages