We find a surprising connection between asymptotically flat spacetimes and nonrelativistic conformal systems in one lower dimension. The Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) group is the group of asymptotic isometries of flat Minkowski space at null infinity. This is known to be infinite dimensional in three and four dimensions. We show that the BMS algebra in 3 dimensions is the same as the 2D Galilean conformal algebra (GCA) which is of relevance to nonrelativistic conformal symmetries. We further justify our proposal by looking at a Penrose limit on a radially infalling null ray inspired by nonrelativistic scaling and obtain a flat metric. The ${\mathrm{BMS}}_4$ algebra is also discussed and found to be the same as another class of GCA, called semi-GCA, in three dimensions. We propose a general BMS-GCA correspondence. Some consequences are discussed.

• Received 27 June 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.171601