At the Corner of Quantum and Gravity

Abstract

In the presence of spacetime boundaries, diffeomorphisms in gravitational theories can become physical and acquire non-vanishing Noether charges. These charges obey an algebra which, within the extended phase-space formalism, faithfully realizes diffeomorphism algebra. The corner proposal takes this algebra of physical corner symmetries as a fundamental ingredient of quantum gravity, in close analogy with the role of the Poincaré group in quantum field theory. In this thesis we develop the quantum corner framework in the two-dimensional setting. We give the full representation theory of the two-dimensional extended corner symmetry group, which may be interpreted either as the symmetry group of two-dimensional gravity or as the corner symmetry group relevant for four-dimensional spherically symmetric gravity. Within the corner proposal, the resulting representation spaces are then interpreted as candidate Hilbert spaces for quantum gravity. This representation-theoretic structure naturally enables a description of local subsystems. In particular, we present a gluing procedure that constructs quantum states associated with an entangling corner between two spacetime subregions, and use it to compute the entanglement entropy between the two regions. To connect the quantum observables to the classical corner charges, we construct the coadjoint orbits of the quantum corner symmetry group and relate them to the classical structure through twisted moment maps and to the quantum structure through generalized Perelomov coherent states. This provides a notion of semiclassical limit within the corner framework. Finally, in the context of static, spherically symmetric spacetimes, we show that a distinguished family of coherent states reproduces the horizon area law for entropy in the semiclassical limit, yielding a quantum, symmetry-based explanation of the Bekenstein--Hawking formula.