947 research outputs found
Pure spinors, twistors, and emergent supersymmetry
Starting with a classical action whose matter variables are a d=10 spacetime
vector and a pure spinor , the pure spinor formalism for
the superstring is obtained by gauge-fixing the twistor-like constraint
. The fermionic variables
are Faddeev-Popov ghosts coming from this gauge-fixing and
replace the usual (b,c) ghosts coming from gauge-fixing the Virasoro
constraint. After twisting the ghost-number such that has
ghost-number zero and has ghost-number one, the BRST
cohomology describes the usual spacetime supersymmetric states of the
superstring.Comment: 10 pages harvmac tex, added comments on small Hilbert space and U_0
dependenc
Simplifying and Extending the AdS_5xS^5 Pure Spinor Formalism
Although the AdS_5xS^5 worldsheet action is not quadratic, some features of
the pure spinor formalism are simpler in an AdS_5xS^5 background than in a flat
background. The BRST operator acts geometrically, the left and right-moving
pure spinor ghosts can be treated as complex conjugates, the zero mode measure
factor is trivial, and the b ghost does not require non-minimal fields.
Furthermore, a topological version of the AdS_5xS^5 action with the same
worldsheet variables and BRST operator can be constructed by gauge-fixing a G/G
principal chiral model where G=PSU(2,2|4). This topological model is argued to
describe the zero radius limit that is dual to free N=4 super-Yang-Mills and
can also be interpreted as an "unbroken phase" of superstring theory.Comment: 39 pages harvma
Supertwistors and Cubic String Field Theory for Open N=2 Strings
The known Lorentz invariant string field theory for open N=2 strings is
combined with a generalization of the twistor description of anti-self-dual
(super) Yang-Mills theories. We introduce a Chern-Simons-type Lagrangian
containing twistor variables and derive the Berkovits-Siegel covariant string
field equations of motion via the twistor correspondence. Both the purely
bosonic and the maximally space-time supersymmetric cases are considered.Comment: 1+9 pages; v2: minor clarification, 3 references added, published
versio
Conformal Field Theory for the Superstring in a Ramond-Ramond Plane Wave Background
A quantizable worldsheet action is constructed for the superstring in a
supersymmetric plane wave background with Ramond-Ramond flux. The action is
manifestly invariant under all isometries of the background and is an exact
worldsheet conformal field theory.Comment: 13 pages harvma
N=2 Sigma Models for Ramond-Ramond Backgrounds
Using the U(4) hybrid formalism, manifestly N=(2,2) worldsheet supersymmetric
sigma models are constructed for the Type IIB superstring in Ramond-Ramond
backgrounds. The Kahler potential in these N=2 sigma models depends on four
chiral and antichiral bosonic superfields and two chiral and antichiral
fermionic superfields. When the Kahler potential is quadratic, the model is a
free conformal field theory which describes a flat ten-dimensional target space
with Ramond-Ramond flux and non-constant dilaton. For more general Kahler
potentials, the model describes curved target spaces with Ramond-Ramond flux
that are not plane-wave backgrounds. Ricci-flatness of the Kahler metric
implies the on-shell conditions for the background up to the usual four-loop
conformal anomaly.Comment: 19 pages harvma
Some Superstring Amplitude Computations with the Non-Minimal Pure Spinor Formalism
We use the non-minimal pure spinor formalism to compute in a super-Poincare
covariant manner the four-point massless one and two-loop open superstring
amplitudes, and the gauge anomaly of the six-point one-loop amplitude. All of
these amplitudes are expressed as integrals of ten-dimensional superfields in a
"pure spinor superspace" which involves five coordinates covariantly
contracted with three pure spinors. The bosonic contribution to these
amplitudes agrees with the standard results, and we demonstrate identities
which show how the and tensors naturally emerge from
integrals over pure spinor superspace.Comment: 20 pages, harvmac te
The Pure Spinor Formulation of Superstrings
In this lectures we outline the construction of pure spinor superstrings. We
consider both the open and closed pure spinor superstrings in critical and
noncritical dimensions and on flat and curved target spaces with RR flux. We
exhibit the integrability properties of pure spinor superstrings on curved
backgrounds with RR fluxes.Comment: These lectures have been given in the RTN Winter School on Strings,
Supergravity and Gauge Theories, CERN (2008). 32 pages, a typo correcte
Non-BPS D-Branes in Light-Cone Green-Schwarz Formalism
Non-BPS D-branes are difficult to describe covariantly in a manifestly
supersymmetric formalism. For definiteness we concentrate on type IIB string
theory in flat background in light-cone Green-Schwarz formalism. We study both
the boundary state and the boundary conformal field theory descriptions of
these D-branes with manifest SO(8) covariance and go through various
consistency checks. We analyze Sen's original construction of non-BPS D-branes
given in terms of an orbifold boundary conformal field theory. We also directly
study the relevant world-sheet theory by deriving the open string boundary
condition from the covariant boundary state. Both these methods give the same
open string spectrum which is consistent with the boundary state, as required
by the world-sheet duality. The boundary condition found in the second method
is given in terms of bi-local fields that are quadratic in Green-Schwarz
fermions. We design a special ``doubling trick'' suitable to handle such
boundary conditions and prescribe rules for computing all possible correlation
functions without boundary insertions. This prescription has been tested by
computing disk one-point functions of several classes of closed string states
and comparing the results with the boundary state computation.Comment: 47 pages, 1 figure. Typos corrected, references added and slight
modification of certain explanation made. Version accepted for publication in
JHE
Exact Solutions of Berkovits' String Field Theory
The equation of motion for Berkovits' WZW-like open (super)string field
theory is shown to be integrable in the sense that it can be written as the
compatibility condition ("zero-curvature condition") of some linear equations.
Employing a generalization of solution-generating techniques (the splitting and
the dressing methods), we demonstrate how to construct nonperturbative
classical configurations of both N=1 superstring and N=2 fermionic string field
theories. With and without u(n) Chan-Paton factors, various solutions of the
string field equation are presented explicitly.Comment: 1+20 pages, LaTeX; v2: typos fixed, version to appear in Nucl. Phys.
Non-Critical Pure Spinor Superstrings
We construct non-critical pure spinor superstrings in two, four and six
dimensions. We find explicitly the map between the RNS variables and the pure
spinor ones in the linear dilaton background. The RNS variables map onto a
patch of the pure spinor space and the holomorphic top form on the pure spinor
space is an essential ingredient of the mapping. A basic feature of the map is
the requirement of doubling the superspace, which we analyze in detail. We
study the structure of the non-critical pure spinor space, which is different
from the ten-dimensional one, and its quantum anomalies. We compute the pure
spinor lowest lying BRST cohomology and find an agreement with the RNS spectra.
The analysis is generalized to curved backgrounds and we construct as an
example the non-critical pure spinor type IIA superstring on AdS_4 with RR
4-form flux.Comment: LaTeX2e, 76 pages, no figures, JHEP style; v2: references and
acknowledgments added, typos corrected; v3: typos corrected and minor changes
to match published versio
- …