CGHS model

Background

The Callan-Giddings-Harvey-Strominger model or CGHS in short is a toy model of general relativity in 1 spatial and 1 time dimension. General relativity is a highly nonlinear model, and as such, its 3+1D version is usually too complicated to analyze in detail. In 3+1D and higher, propagating gravitational waves exist, but not in 2+1D or 1+1D. In 2+1D, general relativity becomes a topological field theory with no local degrees of freedom, and all 1+1D models are locally flat. However, a slightly more complicated generalization of general relativity which includes dilatons will turn the 2+1D model into one admitting mixed propagating dilaton-gravity waves, as well as making the 1+1D model geometrically nontrivial locally. The 1+1D model still does not admit any propagating gravitational (or dilaton) degrees of freedom, but with the addition of matter fields, it becomes a simplified, but still nontrivial model. And of course, 0+1D models cannot capture any nontrivial aspect of relativity because there is no space at all.

This class of models retains just enough complexity to include among its solutions black holes, their formation, FRW cosmological models, gravitational singularities, etc. In the quantized version of such models with matter fields, Hawking radiation also shows up, just as in higher dimensional models.

Action

A very specific choice of couplings and interactions leads to the CGHS model.

$S={\frac {1}{2\pi }}\int d^{2}x\,{\sqrt {-g}}\left\{e^{-2\phi }\left[R+4\left(\nabla \phi \right)^{2}+4\lambda ^{2}\right]-\sum _{i=1}^{N}{\frac {1}{2}}\left(\nabla f_{i}\right)^{2}\right\}$

where g is the metric tensor, φ is the dilaton field, f_i are the matter fields, and λ is the cosmological constant. In particular, the cosmological constant is nonzero, and the matter fields are massless real scalars.

This specific choice is classically integrable, but still not amenable to an exact quantum solution.

See also

• dilaton
• general relativity
• quantum gravity