Generalised shear coordinates on the moduli spaces of three-dimensional spacetimes

We introduce coordinates on the moduli spaces of maximal globally hyperbolic constant curvature 3d spacetimes with cusped Cauchy surfaces S. They are derived from the parametrisation of the moduli spaces by the bundle of measured geodesic laminations over Teichm\"uller space of S and can be viewed as analytic continuations of the shear coordinates on Teichm\"uller space. In terms of these coordinates the gravitational symplectic structure takes a particularly simple form, which resembles the Weil-Petersson symplectic structure in shear coordinates, and is closely related to the cotangent bundle of Teichm\"uller space. We then consider the mapping class group action on the moduli spaces and show that it preserves the gravitational symplectic structure. This defines three distinct mapping class group actions on the cotangent bundle of Teichm\"uller space, corresponding to different values of the curvature.Comment: 40 pages, 6 figure

Weighted Laplacians, cocycles and recursion relations

Hodge's formula represents the gravitational MHV amplitude as the determinant of a minor of a certain matrix. When expanded, this determinant becomes a sum over weighted trees, which is the form of the MHV formula first obtained by Bern, Dixon, Perelstein, Rozowsky and rediscovered by Nguyen, Spradlin, Volovich and Wen. The gravity MHV amplitude satisfies the Britto, Cachazo, Feng and Witten recursion relation. The main building block of the MHV amplitude, the so-called half-soft function, satisfies a different, Berends-Giele-type recursion relation. We show that all these facts are illustrations to a more general story. We consider a weighted Laplacian for a complete graph of n vertices. The matrix tree theorem states that its diagonal minor determinants are all equal and given by a sum over spanning trees. We show that, for any choice of a cocycle on the graph, the minor determinants satisfy a Berends-Giele as well as Britto-Cachazo-Feng-Witten type recursion relation. Our proofs are purely combinatorial.Comment: 12 pages, some figures embedded in the tex

Pure connection formalism for gravity: Recursion relations

In the gauge-theoretic formulation of gravity the cubic vertex becomes simple enough for some graviton scattering amplitudes to be computed using Berends-Giele-type recursion relations. We present such a computation for the current with all same helicity on-shell gravitons. Once the recursion relation is set up and low graviton number cases are worked out, a natural guess for the solution in terms of a sum over trees presents itself readily. The solution can also be described either in terms of the half-soft function familiar from the 1998 paper by Bern, Dixon, Perelstein and Rozowsky or as a matrix determinant similar to one used by Hodges for MHV graviton amplitudes. This solution also immediate suggests the correct guess for the MHV graviton amplitude formula, as is contained in the already mentioned 1998 paper. We also obtain the recursion relation for the off-shell current with all but one same helicity gravitons.Comment: 13 pages, no figure

Pure connection formalism for gravity: Feynman rules and the graviton-graviton scattering

We continue to develop the pure connection formalism for gravity. We derive the Feynman rules for computing the connection correlation functions, as well as the prescription for obtaining the Minkowski space graviton scattering amplitudes from the latter. The present formalism turns out to be simpler than the metric based one in many aspects. Simplifications result from the fact that the conformal factor of the metric, a source of complications in the usual approach, does not propagate in the connection formulation even off-shell. This simplifies both the linearized theory and the interactions. For comparison, in our approach the complete off-shell cubic GR interaction contains just 3 terms, which should be compared to at least a dozen terms in the metric formalism. We put the technology developed to use and compute the simplest graviton-graviton scattering amplitudes. For GR we reproduce the well-known result. For our other, distinct from GR, interacting theories of massless spin 2 particles we obtain non-zero answers for some parity-violating amplitudes. Thus, in the convention that all particles are incoming, we find that the 4 minus, as well as the 3 minus 1 plus amplitudes are zero (as in GR), but the amplitudes with 4 gravitons of positive helicity, as well as the 3 plus 1 minus amplitudes are different from zero. This serves as a good illustration of the type of parity violation present in these theories. We find that the parity-violating amplitudes are important at high energies, and that a general parity-violating member of our class of theories "likes" one helicity (negative in our conventions) more than the other in the sense that at high energies it tends to convert all present gravitons into those of negative helicity.Comment: v2: 57 pages, figures, a missing contribution to the all plus amplitude added, discussion improve

A 4D gravity theory and G2-holonomy manifolds

Bryant and Salamon gave a construction of metrics of G2 holonomy on the total space of the bundle of anti-self-dual (ASD) 2-forms over a 4-dimensional self-dual Einstein manifold. We generalise it by considering the total space of an SO(3) bundle (with fibers R^3) over a 4-dimensional base, with a connection on this bundle. We make essentially the same ansatz for the calibrating 3-form, but use the curvature 2-forms instead of the ASD ones. We show that the resulting 3-form defines a metric of G2 holonomy if the connection satisfies a certain second-order PDE. This is exactly the same PDE that arises as the field equation of a certain 4-dimensional gravity theory formulated as a diffeomorphism-invariant theory of SO(3) connections. Thus, every solution of this 4-dimensional gravity theory can be lifted to a G2-holonomy metric. Unlike all previously known constructions, the theory that we lift to 7 dimensions is not topological. Thus, our construction should give rise to many new metrics of G2 holonomy. We describe several examples that are of cohomogeneity one on the base.Comment: 25 page

Lightlike and ideal tetrahedra

We give a unified description of tetrahedra with lightlike faces in 3d anti-de Sitter, de Sitter and Minkowski spaces and of their duals in 3d anti-de Sitter, hyperbolic and half-pipe spaces. We show that both types of tetrahedra are determined by a generalized cross-ratio with values in a commutative 2d real algebra that generalizes the complex numbers. Equivalently, tetrahedra with lightlike faces are determined by a pair of edge lengths and their duals by a pair of dihedral angles. We prove that the dual tetrahedra are precisely the generalized ideal tetrahedra introduced by Danciger. Finally, we compute the volumes of both types of tetrahedra as functions of their edge lengths or dihedral angles, obtaining generalizations of the Milnor-Lobachevsky volume formula of ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra.Comment: 39 pages, 5 figures. Revised versio

Symplectic Wick rotations between moduli spaces of 3-manifolds

Given a closed hyperbolic surface $S$, let \cQF denote the space of quasifuchsian hyperbolic metrics on $S\times\R$ and \cGH_{-1} the space of maximal globally hyperbolic anti-de Sitter metrics on $S\times\R$. We describe natural maps between (parts of) \cQF and \cGH_{-1}, called "Wick rotations", defined in terms of special surfaces (e.g. minimal/maximal surfaces, CMC surfaces, pleated surfaces) and prove that these maps are at least $C^1$ smooth and symplectic with respect to the canonical symplectic structures on both \cQF and \cGH_{-1}. Similar results involving the spaces of globally hyperbolic de Sitter and Minkowski metrics are also described. These 3-dimensional results are shown to be equivalent to purely 2-dimensional ones. Namely, consider the double harmonic map \cH:T^*\cT\to\cTT, sending a conformal structure $c$ and a holomorphic quadratic differential $q$ on $S$ to the pair of hyperbolic metrics $(m_L,m_R)$ such that the harmonic maps isotopic to the identity from $(S,c)$ to $(S,m_L)$ and to $(S,m_R)$ have, respectively, Hopf differentials equal to $i q$ and $-i q$, and the double earthquake map \cE:\cT\times\cML\to\cTT, sending a hyperbolic metric $m$ and a measured lamination $l$ on $S$ to the pair $(E_L(m,l), E_R(m,l))$, where $E_L$ and $E_R$ denote the left and right earthquakes. We describe how such 2-dimensional double maps are related to 3-dimensional Wick rotations and prove that they are also $C^1$ smooth and symplectic.Comment: 36 pages, 5 figure

O princípio de Maupertuis

32