Finite stress-tensor moment tomography of boundary-graviton coherences
Abstract
Einstein gravity in 2+1 dimensions is a topological theory that does not admit the existence of local bulk gravitons. However, AdS3 gravity with Brown-Henneaux boundary conditions does admit the existence of boundary gravitons, which are described by Virasoro descendants. An observer living on the asymptotic boundary can use finite order moments of the boundary stress tensor as a probe of these states. We fix one highest-weight module and assume that the Shapovalov forms are nondegenerate. We also assume that the unknown state the observer is probing has a known finite descendant support and that interlevel coherence is part of the unknown data. We find that, given a descendant at level N≥2, stress moment tomography at order N (meaning N stress moment insertions) is informationally incomplete, while tomography with stress moments of order N+1 is informationally complete. This is to say that, on the unitary regular locus, orthogonal pure states can have the same complete order-N record. Likewise, for exact finite-window result for levels through L≥2, tomography of order L is incomplete while tomography of order L+1 recovers every density-matrix block. Corresponding exact thresholds hold in the full left-right theory. In heavy sectors for which a semiclassical bulk interpretation exists, these thresholds say when finite-support boundary-graviton states first become distinguishable.
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BibTeX
@misc{bhattacharya2026finite,
title = {{Finite stress-tensor moment tomography of boundary-graviton coherences}},
author = {Dyuman Bhattacharya and Robert B. Mann},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.06363},
eprint = {2609.06363},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06363},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Finite stress-tensor moment tomography of boundary-graviton coherences
AU - Dyuman Bhattacharya
AU - Robert B. Mann
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/06
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.06363
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06363
AB - Einstein gravity in 2+1 dimensions is a topological theory that does not admit the existence of local bulk gravitons. However, AdS_3 gravity with Brown-Henneaux boundary conditions does admit the existence of boundary gravitons, which are described by Virasoro descendants. An observer living on the asymptotic boundary can use finite order moments of the boundary stress tensor as a probe of these states. We fix one highest-weight module and assume that the Shapovalov forms are nondegenerate. We also assume that the unknown state the observer is probing has a known finite descendant support and that interlevel coherence is part of the unknown data. We find that, given a descendant at level N≥2, stress moment tomography at order N (meaning N stress moment insertions) is informationally incomplete, while tomography with stress moments of order N+1 is informationally complete. This is to say that, on the unitary regular locus, orthogonal pure states can have the same complete order-N record. Likewise, for exact finite-window result for levels through L≥2, tomography of order L is incomplete while tomography of order L+1 recovers every density-matrix block. Corresponding exact thresholds hold in the full left-right theory. In heavy sectors for which a semiclassical bulk interpretation exists, these thresholds say when finite-support boundary-graviton states first become distinguishable.
ER -