Abstract
Motivated by issues in the context of asymptotically flat spacetimes at null infinity, we discuss in the simplest example of a free massless scalar field in two dimensions several subtleties that arise when setting up the canonical formulation on a single or on two intersecting null hyperplanes with a special emphasis on the infinite-dimensional global and conformal symmetries and their canonical generators, the free data, a consistent treatment of zero modes, matching conditions, and implications for quantization of massless versus massive fields.
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Acknowledgments
G.B. is grateful to M. Bonte, D. Anninos, M. Henneaux and H.A. González for useful discussions. This work is supported by the F.R.S.-FNRS Belgium through convention FRFC PDR T.1025.14, and convention IISN 4.4514.08. W.T. is supported by a PhD grant from the China Scholarship Council. The work of S.M. is supported by the LABEX Lyon Institute of Origins (ANR-10-LABX-0066) within the Plan France 2030 of the French government operated by the National Research Agency (ANR). G.B. and S.M. are grateful to MITP for hospitality during the programs “Higher Structures, Gravity and Fields” and “Thermalization in Conformal Field Theories” and to the organizers of the 3rd Carroll workshop in Thessaloniki.
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Barnich, G., Majumdar, S., Speziale, S. et al. Lessons from discrete light-cone quantization for physics at null infinity: bosons in two dimensions. J. High Energ. Phys. 2024, 326 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2024)326
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2024)326