JT gravity from holographic reduction of 3D asymptotically flat spacetime

Abstract

We attempt to understand the CFT$_1$ structure underlying (2+1)D gravity in flat spacetime via dimensional reduction. We observe that under superrotation, the hyperbolic (and dS$_2$) slices of flat spacetime transform to asymptotically (A)dS$_2$ slices. We consider a wedge region bounded by two such surfaces as End-of-the-World branes and employ Wedge holography to perform holographic reduction. We show that once we consider fluctuating branes, the localised theory on the branes is Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) theory. Finally, using the dual description of JT, we derive an 1D Schwarzian theory at the spatial slice of null infinity. In this dual Celestial (nearly) CFT, the superrotation mode of 3D plays the role of the Schwarzian derivative of the boundary time reparametrization mode.