Symmetry algebras in Chern-Simons theories with boundary: canonical approach

Abstract

I consider the classical Kac-Moody algebra and Virasoro algebra in Chern-Simons theory with boundary within Dirac's canonical method and Noether's procedure. It is shown that the usual (bulk) Gauss law constraint becomes a second-class constraint because of the boundary effect. From this fact, the Dirac bracket can be constructed explicitly without introducing additional gauge conditions and the classical Kac-Moody and Virasoro algebras are obtained within the usual Dirac method. The equivalence to the symplectic reduction method is presented and the connection to the Banados' work is clarified. Also the generalization to the Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory is considered where the diffeomorphism symmetry is broken by the (three-dimensional) Yang-Mills term. In this case, the same Kac-Moody algebras are obtained although the two theories are sharply different in the canonical structures. Both models realize the holography principle explicitly and the pure CS theory reveals the correspondence of the Chern-Simons theory with boundary/conformal field theory, which is more fundamental and generalizes the conjectured anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence.