On the boundary Carrollian conformal algebra

Abstract: We initiate the mathematical study of the boundary Carrollian conformal algebra (BCCA), an infinite-dimensional Lie algebra recently discovered in the context of Carrollian physics. The BCCA is an intriguing object from both physical and mathematical perspectives, since it is a filtered but not graded Lie algebra. In this paper, we first construct some modules for the BCCA and one of its subalgebras, which we call $\mathcal{O}$, by restriction of well-known modules of the BMS$_3$ and Witt algebras respectively. After showing that such modules are free or ``almost free'', we go through some structure theory on the BCCA to define a new basis and a decreasing filtration on the algebra which lets us construct BCCA-modules intrinsically. In particular, we construct Whittaker modules over the BCCA and the subalgebra $\mathcal{O}$ and prove criteria for their irreducibility.