Pith. sign in

Effective density matrix for vacua in asymptotically flat gravity

3 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.

3 Pith papers citing it
abstract

We explicitly construct the density matrix associated to the vacuum state of a large spherically symmetric causal diamond of area $A$ in four-dimensional asymptotically flat gravity. We achieve this using the soft effective action, which characterizes the low-energy gravitational degrees of freedom that arise in the long-distance limit of the Einstein-Hilbert action and consists of both the soft graviton mode and the Goldstone mode arising from the spontaneous breaking of supertranslation symmetry. Integrating out the soft graviton mode, we obtain an effective action for purely the Goldstone mode, from which we extract the density matrix and therefore the modular Hamiltonian $K_s$ associated to the vacuum state. As a corollary, we explicitly compute the mean and variance of $K_s$, finding $\langle \Delta {K}_s^2 \rangle = A/\epsilon_{\text{UV}}^2$, with $\epsilon_{\text{UV}}$ being a length-scale UV cutoff on the celestial sphere.

fields

hep-th 3

years

2026 2 2025 1

representative citing papers

Quantum Fluctuations of the Black Hole Horizon

hep-th · 2026-06-26 · unverdicted · novelty 5.0

Quantum width of spherically symmetric black hole horizons is defined by signal escape timing and calculated in perturbative quantum gravity to often greatly exceed the Planck length, scaling as sqrt(l_P r_s^2 / sigma_perp) for Schwarzschild patches.

Mapping the Infrared Phase Space of Gravity to Finite Subregions

hep-th · 2026-06-10 · unverdicted · novelty 5.0

Phase space of arbitrary null cut in Minkowski spacetime is symplectomorphic to infrared phase space of asymptotically flat gravity, mapping cut fluctuations to leading soft graviton mode and supertranslation Goldstone mode to cut size times null time offset.

From Asymptotically Flat Gravity to Finite Causal Diamonds

hep-th · 2025-12-09 · conditional · novelty 5.0

The angle-averaged soft and Goldstone modes of 4D asymptotically flat gravity are symplectically identified with the radial-size and area-edge modes of a spherically symmetric Minkowski causal diamond.

citing papers explorer

Showing 3 of 3 citing papers.

  • Quantum Fluctuations of the Black Hole Horizon hep-th · 2026-06-26 · unverdicted · none · ref 16 · internal anchor

    Quantum width of spherically symmetric black hole horizons is defined by signal escape timing and calculated in perturbative quantum gravity to often greatly exceed the Planck length, scaling as sqrt(l_P r_s^2 / sigma_perp) for Schwarzschild patches.

  • Mapping the Infrared Phase Space of Gravity to Finite Subregions hep-th · 2026-06-10 · unverdicted · none · ref 5 · internal anchor

    Phase space of arbitrary null cut in Minkowski spacetime is symplectomorphic to infrared phase space of asymptotically flat gravity, mapping cut fluctuations to leading soft graviton mode and supertranslation Goldstone mode to cut size times null time offset.

  • From Asymptotically Flat Gravity to Finite Causal Diamonds hep-th · 2025-12-09 · conditional · none · ref 32 · internal anchor

    The angle-averaged soft and Goldstone modes of 4D asymptotically flat gravity are symplectically identified with the radial-size and area-edge modes of a spherically symmetric Minkowski causal diamond.