[2608.14449] The Phase Space of Gravity on Null Hypersurfaces Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Search arXiv Press Enter to search · Advanced search High Energy Physics - Theory arXiv:2608.14449 (hep-th) [Submitted on 14 Aug 2026] Title: The Phase Space of Gravity on Null Hypersurfaces Authors: Luca Ciambelli , Laurent Freidel , Robert G. Leigh View a PDF of the paper titled The Phase Space of Gravity on Null Hypersurfaces, by Luca Ciambelli and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: We construct the bulk kinematical Poisson structure of general relativity on a caustic-free null segment, prior to imposing the Raychaudhuri and Damour constraints. We first show that shifts of the Ehresmann connection, also known as Carroll boosts, are pure gauge in gravity. This allows the Ehresmann connection to be fixed as a background structure and leads to the prime phase space of null gravitational data. The resulting phase space comprises of a spin-0 pair that includes the area and its conjugate, a spin-1 pair including the null direction and its conjugate, and the spin-2 sector encoded in the unimodular transverse metric. We then construct the brackets through a three-stage Dirac reduction implementing a normalization, horizontality, and shear constraints. We find that the spin-2 bracket is non-local and involves an antisymmetric Green kernel for a first-order transport operator along the null generators. The self-brackets of the spin-0 and spin-1 momenta involve, respectively, the vertical and horizontal derivatives of the transverse metric contracted with the spin-2 propagator. We finally provide an independent derivation of the brackets from the explicit realization of the Hamiltonian vector fields of the symplectic form. These results provide the classical canonical arena for studying the null constraint algebra, observables, and quantization. Comments: 45 pages, v1 Subjects: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) ; General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) Cite as: arXiv:2608.14449 [hep-th] (or arXiv:2608.14449v1 [hep-th] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.14449 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Luca Ciambelli [ view email ] [v1] Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:34:10 UTC (75 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled The Phase Space of Gravity on Null Hypersurfaces, by Luca Ciambelli and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: hep-th < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: gr-qc References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from