Precursors and BRST symmetry

Abstract

Abstract In the AdS/CFT correspondence, bulk information appears to be encoded in the CFT in a redundant way. A local bulk field corresponds to many different non-local CFT operators (precursors). We recast this ambiguity in the language of BRST symmetry, and propose that in the large N limit, the difference between two precursors is a BRST exact and ghost-free term. This definition of precursor ambiguities has the advantage that it generalizes to any gauge theory. Using the BRST formalism and working in a simple model with global symmetries, we re-derive a precursor ambiguity appearing in earlier work. Finally, we show within this model that the obtained ambiguity has the right number of parameters to explain the freedom to localize precursors within different spatial regions of the boundary order by order in the large N expansion.

Keywords

• AdS-CFT Correspondence
• Gauge-gravity correspondence
• BRST Quantization