Gravitational interpretation of the Hitchin equations

By referring to theorems of Donaldson and Hitchin, we exhibit a rigorous AdS/CFT-type correspondence between classical 2+1-dimensional vacuum general relativity theory on Σ×R$\Sigma \times \mathbb{R}$ and SO(3) Hitchin theory (regarded as a classical conformal field theory) on the spacelike past boundary Σ$\Sigma$, a compact, oriented Riemann surface of genus greater than 1. Within this framework we can interpret the 2+1-dimensional vacuum Einstein equation as a decoupled “dual” version of the two-dimensional SO(3) Hitchin equations.