Loop Quantum Gravity Boundary Dynamics and SL(2,C) Gauge Theory

Abstract

In the context of the quest for a holographic formulation of quantum gravity, we investigate the basic boundary theory structure for loop quantum gravity. In 3+1 space-time dimensions, the boundary theory lives on the 2+1-dimensional time-like boundary and is supposed to describe the time evolution of the edge modes living on the 2-dimensional boundary of space, i.e. the space-time corner. Focusing on "electric" excitations -- quanta of area -- living on the corner, we formulate their dynamics in terms of classical spinor variables and we show that the coupling constants of a polynomial Hamiltonian can be understood as the components of a background boundary 2+1-metric. This leads to a deeper conjecture of a correspondence between boundary Hamiltonian and boundary metric states. We further show that one can reformulate the quanta of area data in terms of a SL(2,C) connection, transporting the spinors on the boundary surface and whose SU(2) component would define "magnetic" excitations (tangential Ashtekar-Barbero connection), thereby opening the door to writing the loop quantum gravity boundary dynamics as a 2+1-dimensional SL(2,C) gauge theory.