Duality Transformations Away From Conformal Points

Target space duality transformations are considered for bosonic sigma models and strings away from RG fixed points. A set of consistency conditions are derived, and are seen to be nontrivially satisfied at one-loop order for arbitrary running metric, antisymmetric tensor and dilaton backgrounds. Such conditions are sufficiently stringent to enable an independent determination of the sigma model beta functions at this order.Comment: 11 pages, plain TeX. Uses harvmac.te

Duality, Quotients, and Currents

We study the generalization of $R\to 1/R$ duality to arbitrary conformally invariant sigma models with an isometry. We show that any pair of dual sigma models can be represented as quotients of a self-dual sigma model obtained by gauging different combinations of chiral currents. This observation is used to clarify the interpretation of the generalized duality as a symmetry of conformal field theory. We extend these results to $N=2$ supersymmetric sigma models.Comment: 20 page

One loop renormalizability of the Poisson-Lie sigma models

We present the proof of the one loop renormalizability in the strict field theoretic sense of the Poisson-Lie sigma models. The result is valid for any Drinfeld double and it relies solely on the Poisson-Lie structure encoded in the target manifold.Comment: 11 page

Poisson-Lie T-duality

A description of dual non-Abelian duality is given, based on the notion of the Drinfeld double. The presentation basically follows the original paper \cite{KS2}, written in collaboration with P. \v Severa, but here the emphasis is put on the algebraic rather than the geometric aspect of the construction and a concrete example of the Borelian double is worked out in detail.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, Lecture given at Trieste conference on S-duality and mirror symmetry, June 1995, (signs in Eqs. (10,11) corrected, 1 reference added

Infinity Cancellation, Type I' Compactification and String S-Matrix Functional

Nonvanishing tadpoles and possible infinities associated in the multiparticle amplitudes are discussed with regard to the disk and $RP^{2}$ diagrams of the Type I' compactification. We find that the infinity cancellation of $SO(32)$ type $I$ theory extends to this case as well despite the presence of tadpoles localized in the D-brane world-volume and the orientifold surfaces. Formalism of string S-matrix generating functional is presented to find a consistent string background as c-number source function: we find this only treats the cancellation of the tadpoles in the linearized approximation. Our formalism automatically provides representation of the string amplitudes on this background to all orders in $\alpha'$.Comment: 18 pages, Latex, more references adde

A Canonical Approach to Duality Transformations

We show that Buscher's abelian duality transformation rules can be recovered in a very simple way by performing a canonical transformation first suggested by Giveon, Rabinovici and Veneziano. We explore the properties of this transformation, and also discuss some aspects of non-abelian duality.Comment: 11 p, LaTex, preprint CERN-TH-7337/94 (some comments and references added

A nonlocal Poisson bracket of the sine-Gordon model

It is well known that the classical string on a two-sphere is more or less equivalent to the sine-Gordon model. We consider the nonabelian dual of the classical string on a two-sphere. We show that there is a projection map from the phase space of this model to the phase space of the sine-Gordon model. The corresponding Poisson structure of the sine-Gordon model is nonlocal with one integration.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX, v2,3: added Section 4 and reference

DeWitt-Virasoro construction

We study a particular approach for analyzing worldsheet conformal invariance for bosonic string propagating in a curved background using hamiltonian formalism. We work in the Schrodinger picture of a single particle description of the problem where the particle moves in an infinite-dimensional space. Background independence is maintained in this approach by adopting DeWitt's (Phys.Rev.85:653-661,1952) coordinate independent formulation of quantum mechanics. This enables us to construct certain background independent notion of Virasoro generators, called DeWitt-Virasoro (DWV) generators, and invariant matrix elements of an arbitrary operator constructed out of them in spin-zero representation. We show that the DWV algebra is given by the Witt algebra with additional anomalous terms that vanish for Ricci-flat backgrounds. The actual quantum Virasoro generators should be obtained by first introducing the vacuum state and then normal ordering the DWV generators with respect to that. We demonstrate the procedure in the simple cases of flat and pp-wave backgrounds. This is a shorter version of arXiv:0912.3987 [hep-th] with many technical derivations omitted.Comment: 18 pages, shorter version of arXiv:0912.3987 [hep-th] accepted for publication in Pramana - Journal of Physic

A Novel Symmetry in Sigma Models

A class of non-linear sigma models possessing a new symmetry is identified. The same symmetry is also present in Chern-Simons theories. This hints at a possible topological origin for this class of sigma models. The non-linear sigma models obtained by non-Abelian duality are a particular case in this class.Comment: 9 pages, latex, no figure

On the inflationary solutions in higher-derivative gravity with dilaton field

We discuss the existence of de Sitter inflationary solutions for the string-inspired fourth-derivative gravity theories with dilaton field. We consider a space-time of arbitrary dimension D and an arbitrary parametrization of the target space metric. The specific features of the theory in dimension D=4 and those of the special ghost-free parametrization of the metric are found. We also consider similar string-inspired theories with torsion and construct an inflationary solution with torsion and dilaton for D=4. The stability of the inflationary solutions is also investigated.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, no figure