Noncommutative lightcones from quantum SO(2,1) conformal groups

Abstract Five new families of noncommutative lightcones in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> dimensions are presented as quantizations of the inequivalent Poisson homogeneous structures that emerge when the lightcone is constructed as a homogeneous space of the SO(2,1) conformal group. Each of these noncommutative lightcones maintains covariance under the action of the respective quantum deformation of the SO(2,1) conformal group. We discuss the role played by SO(2,1) automorphisms in the classification of inequivalent Poisson homogeneous lightcones, as well as the geometric aspects of this construction. The localization properties of the novel quantum lightcones are analyzed and shown to be deeply connected with the geometric features of the Poisson homogeneous spaces.