The degrees of freedom of multiway junctions in three dimensional gravity

Abstract

We demonstrate that $n$-way junctions in three dimensional gravity correspond to coupled $n-1$ strings each satisfying the Nambu-Goto equation in the smoothened background, and with sources consisting of Monge-Ampère like terms which couple the strings. For $n\geq 3$, these $n-1$ degrees of freedom survive the tensionless limit implying that matter-like behavior can arise out of \textit{pure} gravity. We interpret these stringy degrees of freedom of gravitational junctions holographically in terms of wavepackets which collectively undergo perfect reflection at the multi-interface in the dual conformal field theory.