Flat/AdS boundary conditions in three dimensional conformal gravity

Abstract

We present the asymptotic analysis of 3D conformal gravity as a SO(3,2) Chern-Simons gauge theory with Minkowskian (flat) and AdS boundary conditions. We further extend these boundary conditions to the case where the Weyl mode and the partial massless mode are allowed to fluctuate. The latter leads to loosing one copy of the Virasoro algebra and the former to a u(1) current extension of the asymptotic symmetry algebra and shifting the Virasoro central charge by one. We also give a pedagogical canonical and asymptotic analysis of 3D pure gravity as an ISO(2,1) Chern-Simons gauge theory with flat boundary conditions.