Corner Symmetries in Gravity

Abstract: In the last 7 years, we have gathered a lot of results pointing toward an underlying universal symmetry structure in gravity. I will give an overview of these recent results, focusing in particular on two main features. First, we will derive the observables of classical gravity, which are the corner charges computed from Noether’s second theorem. Secondly, we will discuss their algebra, for which we have found a universal maximal structure. These two ingredients are at the core of the corner proposal, which is a bottom-up approach to quantum gravity, based on symmetries. I will enunciate and discuss this proposal, and its far-reaching consequences for quantum gravity.