BMS-like symmetries in cosmology
Béatrice Bonga, Kartik Prabhu
Abstract
Null infinity in asymptotically flat spacetimes posses a rich mathematical structure; including the Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) group and the Bondi news tensor that allow one to study gravitational radiation rigorously. However, Friedmann-Lema\^{\i}tre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) spacetimes are not asymptotically flat because their stress-energy tensor does not decay sufficiently fast, and, in fact diverges, at null infinity. This class includes matter- and radiation-dominated FLRW spacetimes. We define a class of spacetimes whose structure at null infinity is similar to FLRW spacetimes: the stress-energy tensor is allowed to diverge and the conformal factor is not smooth at null infinity. Interestingly, for this larger class of spacetimes, the asymptotic symmetry algebra is similar to the BMS algebra but not isomorphic to it. In particular, the symmetry algebra is the semidirect sum of supertranslations and the Lorentz algebra, but it does not have any preferred translation subalgebra. Future applications include studying gravitational radiation in FLRW, the full nonlinear theory, including the cosmological memory effect, and also asymptotic charges in this framework.