Large Gauge Transformations and Black Hole Entropy
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Abstract
Diffeomorphisms in general relativity can act non-trivially on the boundary of spacetimes. Of particular importance are the
We first consider symmetries such as these that act non-trivially at null infinity. We look in detail at the BMS group and then describe the conformal symmetries of asymptotically flat spacetime. These represent an extension of the BMS group that we call the
Second, we explore the action of these large diffeomorphisms in the context of black holes. The emergence of Virasoro algebras as the asymptotic symmetry algebras of black hole spacetimes suggests a fundamental link to conformal field theory. For the case of the generic Kerr black hole, we hypothesize that the black hole is itself a thermal conformal field theory which transforms under a Virasoro action. A set of infinitesimal