Free boundary conditions and the AdS$_3$/CFT$_2$ correspondence

Abstract: We show that the recently proposed free boundary conditions for AdS$_3$ are dual to two-dimensional quantum gravity in certain fixed gauges. In particular, we note that an appropriate identification of the generator of Virasoro transformations leads to a vanishing total central charge in agreement with the theory at the boundary. We argue that this identification is necessary to match the bulk and boundary generators of Virasoro transformations and for consistency with the constraint equations.