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We derive a prescription for the phase space of general relativity on two intersecting null surfaces using the null initial value formulation. The phase space allows generic smooth initial data, and the corresponding boundary symmetry group is the semidirect product of the group of arbitrary diffeomorphisms of each null boundary which coincide at the corner, with a group of reparameterizations of the null generators. The phase space can be consistently extended by acting with half-sided boosts that generate Weyl shocks along the initial data surfaces. The extended phase space includes the relative boost angle between the null surfaces as part of the initial data. We then apply the Wald-Zoupas framework to compute gravitational charges and fluxes associated with the boundary symmetries. The non-uniqueness in the charges can be reduced to two free parameters by imposing covariance and invariance under rescalings of the null normals. We show that the Wald-Zoupas stationarity criterion cannot be used to eliminate the non-uniqueness. The different choices of parameters correspond to different choices of polarization on the phase space. We also derive the symmetry groups and charges for two subspaces of the phase space, the first obtained by fixing the direction of the normal vectors, and the second by fixing the direction and normalization of the normal vectors. The second symmetry group consists of Carrollian diffeomorphisms on the two boundaries. Finally we specialize to future event horizons by imposing the condition that the area element be non-decreasing and become constant at late times. For perturbations about stationary backgrounds we determine the independent dynamical degrees of freedom by solving the constraint equations along the horizons. We mod out by the degeneracy directions of the presymplectic form, and apply a similar procedure for weak non-degeneracies, to obtain the horizon edge modes and the Poisson structure. We show that the area operator of the black hole generates a shift in the relative boost angle under the Poisson bracket. 

The asymptotic symmetry group of general relativity in asymptotically flat spacetimes can be extended from the Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) group to the generalized BMS (GMBS) group suggested by Campiglia and Laddha, which includes arbitrary diffeomorphisms of the celestial two-sphere. It can be further extended to the Weyl BMS (BMSW) group suggested by Freidel, Oliveri, Pranzetti and Speziale, which includes general conformal transformations. We compute the action of fully nonlinear BMSW transformations on the leading order Bondi-gauge metric functions: specifically, the induced metric, Bondi mass aspect, angular momentum aspect, and shear. These results generalize previous linearized results in the BMSW context by Freidel et al., and also nonlinear results in the BMS context by Chen, Wang, Wang and Yau. The transformation laws will be useful for exploring implications of the BMSW group. 

Abstract In 2011 Blanchet and Marsat suggested a fully relativistic version of Milgrom's modified Newtonian dynamics in which the dynamical degrees of freedom consist of the spacetime metric and a foliation of spacetime, the khronon field. This theory is simpler than the alternative relativistic formulations. We show that the theory has a consistent nonrelativistic or slow-motion limit. Blanchet and Marsat showed that in the slow motion limit, the theory reproduces stationary solutions of modified Newtonian dynamics. We show that these solutions are stable to khronon perturbations in the low acceleration regime, for the cases of spherical, cylindrical, and planar symmetry. For nonstationary systems in the low acceleration regime, we show that the khronon field generally gives an order unity correction to the modified Newtonian dynamics. In particular, there will be an order unity correction to the MOND version of Kepler's third law, potentially relevant to ongoing efforts to test MOND using GAIA observations of wide binaries. 

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A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2018)125 

A bstract Gauge and gravitational theories in asymptotically flat settings possess infinitely many conserved charges associated with large gauge transformations or diffeomorphisms that are nontrivial at infinity. To what extent do these charges constrain the scattering in these theories? It has been claimed in the literature that the constraints are trivial, due to a decoupling of hard and soft sectors for which the conserved charges constrain only the dynamics in the soft sector. We show that the argument for this decoupling fails due to the failure in infinite dimensions of a property of symplectic geometry which holds in finite dimensions. Specializing to electromagnetism coupled to a massless charged scalar field in four dimensional Minkowski spacetime, we show explicitly that the two sectors are always coupled using a perturbative classical computation of the scattering map. Specifically, while the two sectors are uncoupled at low orders, they are coupled at quartic order via the electromagnetic memory effect. This coupling cannot be removed by adjusting the definitions of the hard and soft sectors (which includes the classical analog of dressing the hard degrees of freedom). We conclude that the conserved charges yield nontrivial constraints on the scattering of hard degrees of freedom. This conclusion should also apply to gravitational scattering and to black hole formation and evaporation. In developing the classical scattering theory, we show that generic Lorenz gauge solutions fail to satisfy the matching condition on the vector potential at spatial infinity proposed by Strominger to define the field configuration space, and we suggest a way to remedy this. We also show that when soft degrees of freedom are present, the order at which nonlinearities first arise in the scattering map is second order in Lorenz gauge, but can be third order in other gauges. 

We develop a general framework for constructing charges associated with diffeomorphisms in gravitational theories using covariant phase space techniques. This framework encompasses both localized charges associated with space–time subregions, as well as global conserved charges of the full space–time. Expressions for the charges include contributions from the boundary and corner terms in the subregion action, and are rendered unambiguous by appealing to the variational principle for the subregion, which selects a preferred form of the symplectic flux through the boundaries. The Poisson brackets of the charges on the subregion phase space are shown to reproduce the bracket of Barnich and Troessaert for open subsystems, thereby giving a novel derivation of this bracket from first principles. In the context of asymptotic boundaries, we show that the procedure of holographic renormalization can be always applied to obtain finite charges and fluxes once suitable counterterms have been found to ensure a finite action. This enables the study of larger asymptotic symmetry groups by loosening the boundary conditions imposed at infinity. We further present an algorithm for explicitly computing the counterterms that renormalize the action and symplectic potential, and, as an application of our framework, demonstrate that it reproduces known expressions for the charges of the generalized Bondi–Metzner–Sachs algebra. 

A bstract As a black hole evaporates, each outgoing Hawking quantum carries away some of the black holes asymptotic charges associated with the extended Bondi-Metzner-Sachs group. These include the Poincaré charges of energy, linear momentum, intrinsic angular momentum, and orbital angular momentum or center-of-mass charge, as well as extensions of these quantities associated with supertranslations and super-Lorentz transformations, namely supermomentum, superspin and super center-of-mass charges (also known as soft hair). Since each emitted quantum has fluctuations that are of order unity, fluctuations in the black hole’s charges grow over the course of the evaporation. We estimate the scale of these fluctuations using a simple model. The results are, in Planck units: (i) The black hole position has a uncertainty of $$ \sim {M}_i^2 $$ ∼ M i 2 at late times, where M i is the initial mass (previously found by Page). (ii) The black hole mass M has an uncertainty of order the mass M itself at the epoch when M ∼ $$ {M}_i^{2/3} $$ M i 2 / 3 , well before the Planck scale is reached. Correspondingly, the time at which the evaporation ends has an uncertainty of order $$ \sim {M}_i^2 $$ ∼ M i 2 . (iii) The supermomentum and superspin charges are not independent but are determined from the Poincaré charges and the super center-of-mass charges. (iv) The supertranslation that characterizes the super center-of-mass charges has fluctuations at multipole orders l of order unity that are of order unity in Planck units. At large l , there is a power law spectrum of fluctuations that extends up to l ∼ $$ {M}_i^2/M $$ M i 2 / M , beyond which the fluctuations fall off exponentially, with corresponding total rms shear tensor fluctuations ∼ M i M − 3/2 .