Gauge Symmetries and Conserved Currents in AdS/BCFT

Abstract: In this paper, we study massless/massive vector and $p$-form field perturbations in AdS spacetime with an end-of-the-world brane. By imposing $U(1)$ preserving Neumann boundary condition on the end-of-the-world brane, we study their spectrum and discuss their implications for dual BCFT operators. When the perturbation is massless, the dual BCFT operator is a conserved current and we show that such an operator indeed satisfies the $U(1)$ preserving conformal boundary condition. On the other hand, when the perturbation is massive, in general there exists non-vanishing perpendicular components of the dual BCFT operator, even in the massless limit. We explain this difference between massless and massive perturbations from the point of view of the bulk gauge symmetry, or equivalently from different structure of equations of motion. We also find several brane-tension-independent modes in massless perturbations, and these are understood as boundary-condition-independent modes from the dual BCFT point of view.