A new pairwise boost quantum number from celestial states

Abstract

Infrared effects in the scattering of particles in gravity and electrodynamics entail an exchange of relativistic angular momentum between pairs of particles and the gauge field. Due to this exchange particles can carry an asymptotically non-vanishing "pairwise" boost-like angular momentum proportional to the product of their couplings to the field. At the quantum level this asymptotic angular momentum suggests the existence of a new quantum number carried by multi-particle states. We argue that such quantum number is related to a modification of the action of the generators of Lorentz transformations on multi-particle states. We derive such a modification using a group-theoretic argument based on the little group of the conformal primary basis for asymptotic states. The corresponding representation is an extension of the ordinary multi-particle Fock representation of the Poincar\'e group. The new multi-particle states belonging to such representation no longer factorize into tensor products of one-particle states. Viewed from a gravitational point of view, our results provide evidence for a universal breakdown of the description of multi-particle sates in terms of Fock space due to infrared back-reaction.