Topological Holography

Abstract

We study a topological field theory in four dimensions on a manifold with boundary. A bulk-boundary interaction is introduced through a novel variational principle rather than explicitly. Through this scheme we find that the boundary values of the bulk fields act as external sources for the boundary theory. Furthermore, the full quantum states of the theory factorize into a single bulk state and an infinite number of boundary states labeled by loops on the spatial boundary. In this sense the theory is purely holographic. We show that this theory is dual to Chern-Simons theory with an external source. We also point out that the holographic hypothesis must be supplemented by additional assumptions in order to take into account bulk topological degrees freedom, since these are apriori invisible to local boundary fields.