journal club on aspects of information, quantum theory, and gravity
28 Mar 2024
The Bondi–Van der Burg–Metzner–Sachs (BMS) group is the group of symmetries of null infinity in asymptotically flat spacetimes. While one could naively expect for this group to be simply the Poincaré group, so that general relativity reduces to special relativity far away from any matter sources, it turns out that the correct group is an infinite-dimensional extension of the Poincaré group. In this pedagogical review, we discuss the main ideas behind the BMS group and provide an explicit derivation of it. We also discuss its physical consequences and applications in different topics in fundamental physics.