Four-dimensional compactifications of string theory provide a controlled set of possible gauge representations accounting for BSM particles and dark sector components. In this review, constraints from perturbative Type II string compactifications in the geometric regime are discussed in detail and then compared to results from heterotic string compactifications and non-perturbative/non-geometric corners. As a prominent example, an open string realization of the QCD axion is presented. The status of deriving the associated low-energy effective action in four dimensions is discussed and open avenues of major phenomenological importance are highlighted. As examples, a mechanism of closed string moduli stabilization by D-brane backreaction as well as one-loop threshold corrections to the gauge couplings and balancing a low string scale $M_{\text{string}}$ with unisotropic compact dimensions are discussed together with implications on potential future new physics observations. For illustrative purposes, an explicit example of a globally consistent D6-brane model with MSSM-like spectrum on $T^6/(\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_6 \times Ω{\cal R})$ is presented.
Spinor--Vector Duality (SVD) has been observed in worldsheet constructions of heterotic--string compactifications. Recently, its realisation in the effective field theory limit of string vacua in six and five dimensions has been investigated. The SVD has been used to construct a string model that allows for an extra family universal $U(1)$, with the standard $E_6$ embedding of its charges, to remain unbroken down to low scales. Anomaly cancellation of the extra $U(1)$ charges mandates the existence of additional matter states at the extra $U(1)$ breaking scale, which affects precision measurem…
We show that it is possible to accommodate physical scalar resonances within a minimal nonlinearly realized electroweak theory in a way compatible with a natural Hopf algebra selection criterion (Weak Power Counting) and the relevant functional identities of the model (Local Functional Equation, Slavnov-Taylor identity, ghost equations, b-equations). The Beyond-the-Standard-Model (BSM) sector of the theory is studied by BRST techniques. The presence of a mass generation mechanism à la Stückelberg allows for two mass invariants in the gauge boson sector. The corresponding 't Hooft gauge-fixing …
We present a gauge mediation principle for BSM theories where exact UV scale invariance is broken in a hidden sector. The relevant configurations are those in which the Standard Model and a hidden sector emanate from a scale invariant pair of UV theories that communicate only via gauge interactions. We compute the radiatively induced Higgs potential which contains logarithmic mass-squared terms that lead to unusual Higgs self-couplings. Its other couplings are unchanged.
Light moduli fields in string compactifications can have interesting implications for particle physics and cosmology. Fifth force bounds impose stringent constraints on the interactions of such moduli with the visible sector. To be consistent with the bounds, they need to be part of hidden sectors which interact with the Standard Model with weaker-than-Planck suppressed interactions. We consider scenarios in which the visible sector degrees of freedom are localised in the compactification and light moduli arise as closed string degrees of freedom associated with hidden sectors which are geomet…
We describe local Calabi-Yau geometries with two isolated singularities at which systems of D3- and D7-branes are located, leading to chiral sectors corresponding to a semi-realistic visible sector and a hidden sector with dynamical supersymmetry breaking. We provide explicit models with a 3-family MSSM-like visible sector, and a hidden sector breaking supersymmetry at a meta-stable minimum. For singularities separated by a distance smaller than the string scale, this construction leads to a simple realization of gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking in string theory. The models are simple eno…
We study a realization of accidental supersymmetry in type IIB string theory as a proof-of-principle of the mechanism and as a prototype of the strong sector present in resurgent supersymmetry, a warped UV-completion of natural supersymmetry. We first introduce the mechanism of accidental supersymmetry as a way of producing a supersymmetric spectrum in the IR of a quasi-conformal field theory, and then go on to discuss the utility of the mechanism in the specific BSM model of resurgent supersymmetry. The realization of accidental SUSY that we study is IIB string theory on an orbifold of the Kl…
We study well-motivated dark matter candidates arising from weakly-coupled hidden sectors in compactified string/$M$-theory. Imposing generic top-down constraints greatly restricts allowed candidates. By considering the possible mechanisms for achieving the correct dark matter relic density, we compile categories of viable dark matter candidates and annihilation mediators. We consider the case where supersymmetry breaking occurs via moduli stabilisation and is gravitationally mediated to the visible and other hidden sectors, without assuming sequestering of the sector in which supersymmetry is…
We study cosmological constraints on dark pure Yang-Mills sectors. Dark glueballs are overproduced for large regions of ultraviolet parameter space. The problem may be alleviated in two ways: via a large preferential reheating into the visible sector, motivating certain inflation or modulus decay models, or via decays into axions or moduli, which are strongly constrained by nucleosynthesis and $ΔN_{\text{eff}}$ bounds. String models frequently have multiple hidden Yang-Mills sectors, which are subject to even stronger constraints due to the existence of multiple dark glueballs.
Many models of physics beyond the Standard Model predict minicharged particles to which current and near future low-energy experiments are highly sensitive. Such minicharges arise generically from kinetic-mixing in theories containing at least two U(1) gauge factors. Here, we point out that the required multiple U(1) factors, the size of kinetic-mixing, and suitable matter representations to allow for a detection in the near future occur naturally in the context of string theory embeddings of the Standard Model. A detection of minicharged particles in a low energy experiment would likely be a …
We construct a class of quadratic gauge invariant actions for extended string fields defined on the tensor product of open superstring state space for multiple open string Neveu-Schwarz (NS) sectors with or without one Ramond (R) sector. The basic idea is the same as for the bosonic extended string field theory developed by the authors [arXiv:1309.3850]. The theory for NS^n sector and NS^{n-1}-R sector contains general n-th rank tensor fields and (n-1)-th rank spinor-tensor fields in the massless spectrum respectively. In principle, consistent gauge invariant actions for any generic type of 10…
We study the ghost sector of vacuum string field theory where the BRST operator Q is given by the midpoint insertion proposed by Gaiotto, Rastelli, Sen and Zwiebach. We introduce a convenient basis of half-string modes in terms of which Q takes a particularly simple form. We show that there exists a field redefinition which reduces the ghost sector field equation to a pure projection equation for string fields satisfying the constraint that the ghost number is equally divided over the left- and right halves of the string. When this constraint is imposed, vacuum string field theory can be refor…
The heterotic--string models in the free fermionic formulation gave rise to some of the most realistic string models to date, which possess N=1 spacetime supersymmetry. Lack of evidence for supersymmetry at the LHC instigated recent interest in non-supersymmetric heterotic-string vacua. We explore what may be learned in this context from the quasi--realistic free fermionic models. We show that constructions with a low number of families give rise to proliferation of a priori tachyon producing sectors, compared to the non--realistic examples, which typically may contain only one such sector. Th…
Including world-sheet orientation-reversing automorphisms in the orbifold program, we recently reported the twisted operator algebra and twisted KZ equations in each open-string sector of the general WZW orientation orbifold. In this paper we work out the corresponding classical description of these sectors, including the {\it WZW orientation-orbifold action} -- which is naturally defined on the solid half cylinder -- and its associated WZW orientation-orbifold branes. As a generalization, we also obtain the {\it sigma-model orientation-orbifold action}, which describes a much larger class of …
In hidden sector models with an extra U(1) gauge group, new fields can interact with the Standard Model only through gauge kinetic mixing and the Higgs portal. After the U(1) is spontaneously broken, these interactions couple the resultant cosmic strings to Standard Model particles. We calculate the spectrum of radiation emitted by these "dark strings" in the form of Higgs bosons, Z bosons, and Standard Model fermions assuming that string tension is above the TeV scale. We also calculate the scattering cross sections of Standard Model fermions on dark strings due to the Aharonov-Bohm interacti…
We quantize the bosonic part of the D1 string with closed boundary conditions on the light cone and we consider the U(1) worldsheet gauge field a dynamical variable. We compute also 3-Reggeon vertex by the overlapping technique. We find that the Fock space is the sum of sectors characterized by the momentum of the U(1) Wilson line and that these sectors do not interact among them. Each sector has exactly the same spectrum of the usual bosonic string when expressed in properly sector dependent rescaled variables. Rescaling is forced by factorization of the string amplitudes. We are also able to…
We review the case for light U(1) gauge bosons in the hidden-sector of heterotic and type II string compactifications, present estimates of the size of their kinetic mixing with the visible-sector hypercharge U(1), and discuss their possibly very interesting phenomenological consequences in particle physics and cosmology.
We study string interactions among string states with arbitrary impurities in the Type IIB plane wave background using string field theory. We reproduce all string amplitudes from gauge theory by computing matrix elements of the dilatation operator in a previously proposed basis of states. A direct correspondence is found between the string field theory and gauge theory Feynman diagrams.
Recent astrophysical observations have motivated novel theoretical models of the dark matter sector. A class of such models predicts the existence of GeV scale cosmic strings that communicate with the standard model sector by Aharonov-Bohm interactions with electrically charged particles. We discuss the cosmology of these "dark strings" and investigate possible observational signatures. More elaborate dark sector models are argued to contain hybrid topological defects that may also have observational signatures.
D3-brane probes of E-type Yukawa points lead to strongly coupled nearly conformal sectors nearby the Standard Model (visible sector) which are motivated by F-theory GUTs. Realistic visible sector brane configurations induce a seesaw mass hierarchy in the hidden sector with light GUT singlets charged under a strongly coupled hidden sector U(1). Interpreting these GUT singlets as dark matter, this leads to a matter genesis scenario where the freeze out and subsequent decay of heavy mediators between the two sectors simultaneously populates comparable amounts of baryon and dark matter asymmetry. …
We point out that the moduli sector of the $(2,2)$ string compactification with its nonperturbatively preserved non-compact symmetries is a fertile framework to study global topological defects, thus providing a natural source for the large scale structure formation. Based on the target space modular invariance of the nonperturbative superpotential of the four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric string vacua, topologically stable stringy domain walls are found. They are supersymmetric solutions, thus saturating the Bogomolnyi bound. It is also shown that there are moduli sectors that allow for the …
We make a further step in the analytically exact quantization of spinning string states in semiclassical approximation, by evaluating the exact one-loop partition function for a class of two-spin string solutions for which quadratic fluctuations form a non-trivial system of coupled modes. This is the case of a folded string in the $SU(2)$ sector, in the limit described by a quantum Landau-Lifshitz model. The same applies to the full bosonic sector of fluctuations over the folded spinning string in $AdS_5$ with an angular momentum $J$ in $S^5$. Fluctuations are governed by a special class of fo…
Closed string tachyon emission from a traveling long string in Liouville string theory is studied. The exact collective field Hamiltonian in the adjoint sector of the c=1 matrix model is computed to capture the interaction between the tip of the long string and the closed string tachyon field. The amplitude for emission of a single tachyon quantum is obtained in a closed form using the chiral formalism.
We extend the analysis of arXiv:1009.2624, which constructed the non-linear realisation of the semi-direct product of E11 and the l1 representation at level zero, to level one. Thus we add to the previously considered NS-NS fields those of the R-R sector.
Examining the symmetries of the pseudo-action, we propose a prescription for the new Feynman rules for the Ramond sector of the WZW-like heterotic string field theory. The new rules are an analog of that recently proposed for the open superstring field theory and respect all the gauge symmetries including those provided we impose the constraint after transformation. It is shown that the new rules reproduce the well-known on-shell tree-level amplitudes for four and five external strings including fermions.
We study the Neveu-Schwarz-Ramond (NSR) open super-string theory in the proper-time gauge. The string field action is obtained by evaluating the Polyakov string path integral. In this study, we focus on the open-string free-field action, which corresponds to the string path integral on a strip. Depending on the periodicity of the fermion fields, the open super-string has two sectors: The Neveu-Schwarz (NS) and Ramond (R) sectors. We can impose the gauge conditions to fix the (super-) reparametrization invariance on the two-dimensional metric and its super-partner on the string world sheet to s…
We compute at one loop the two-point functions of massless scalars in the Neumann-Dirichlet open-string sector of the type IIB orientifold compactified on $T^2\times T^4/\mathbb{Z}_2$, when $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetry is spontaneously broken. This is done by evaluating correlation functions of ``boundary-changing vertex operators'' which are analogous to correlators of twist fields for closed strings. We use our results to compute the mass developed at one loop by the moduli fields arising in the Neumann-Dirichlet sector.
It has been suggested recently that self-interacting dark matter fits better the observational characteristics of galaxy dynamics. We propose that the self-interacting dark matter is composed from the glueballs of the hidden sector non-Abelian gauge group, while the hidden matter states exist in vector-like representation and decouple from the light spectrum. It is shown that these glueballs are semi-stable with the life-time larger than the present age of the Universe, if their mass is 1 GeV or less. The constraint on their abundance today suggests that the energy was stored in the hidden sec…
We find classical closed string solutions to the non-relativistic AdS$_5\times$S$^5$ string theory which are the analogue of the BMN and GKP solutions for the relativistic theory. We show that non-relativistic AdS$_5\times$S$^5$ string theory admits a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ orbifold symmetry which allows us to impose twisted boundary conditions. Among the solutions in the twisted sector, we find the one around which the semiclassical expansion in arXiv:2102.00008 takes place.
Leinweber Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Chicago(芝加哥大学莱因韦伯理论物理研究所);EPFL(洛桑联邦理工学院);Jefferson Physical Laboratory, Harvard University(哈佛大学杰斐逊物理实验室)
We introduce a uniform light-cone gauge for strings propagating in AdS space-time. We use the gauge to analyze strings from the su(1|1) sector, and show that the reduced model is described by a quadratic action for two complex fermions. Thus, the uniform light-cone gauge allows us to solve the model exactly. We analyze the near BMN spectrum of states from the su(1|1) sector and show that it correctly reproduces the 1/J corrections. We also compute the spectrum in the strong coupling limit, and derive the famous λ^{1/4} asymptotics. We then show that the same string spectrum can be also derived…
We study the minimal supersymmetric standard model derived from the $Z_8$ orbifold models and its hidden sectors. We use a target-space duality anomaly cancellation so as to investigate hidden sectors consistent with the MSSM unification. For the allowed hidden sectors, we estimate the running gauge coupling constants making use of threshold corrections due to the higher massive modes. The calculation is important from the viewpoint of gaugino condensations, which is one of the most promissing mechanism to break the supersymmetry.
We consider a wrapped supermembrane on $\R^9\times T^2$. We examine a double dimensional reduction to deduce a $(p,q)$-string in type IIB superstring theory from the wrapped supermembrane. In particular, directly from the wrapped supermembrane action, we explicitly derive the action of a string which carries the RR 2-form charge as well as the NSNS 2-form charge, and the tension of the string agrees with the $(p,q)$-string tension.
In this paper we investigate complex solutions of the Bethe equations in the two-particle sector both for arbitrary finite number of sites and for the thermodynamic limit . We find the number of complex solutions (strings) and compare it with the string conjecture prediction. Some simple properties of these solutions like position in the spectrum, crossing of levels, connection to the ground state and transformation to the real solutions are discussed. Counting both real and complex solutions we find expected number of highest weight Bethe states.
We demonstrate that asymmetric reheating arises in a large ensemble of string compactifications with many axions and gauged dark sectors. This phenomenon may help avoid numerous cosmological problems that may arise if the sectors were reheated democratically. Distributions of couplings are presented for two classes of axion reheatons, both of which exhibit very small couplings to most of the gauge sectors. In one class, ratios of reheating couplings and also preferred gauge groups are frequently determined by local regions in the string geometry.
An embedding of a unified dark sector model into string theory with the following features is proposed: The model-independent axion descending from the Kalb-Ramond 2-form field is identified with the dark-matter field, and the real part of a Kähler modulus field -- the ``radius'' of one of the extra spatial dimensions -- accounts for dark energy. The expectation value of the dilaton field is stabilized by a gaugino condensation mechanism. A dark-energy potential corresponding to a realistic low energy scale results from some gentle tuning of the stabilized expectation value of the dilaton. The…
A chiral string can be seen as an ordinary string in a singular gauge for the worldsheet metric and has the ambitwistor string as its tensionless limit. As proposed by Siegel, there is a one-parameter ($β$) gauge family interpolating between the chiral limit and the usual conformal gauge in string theory. This idea was used to compute scattering amplitudes of tensile chiral strings, which are given by standard string amplitudes with modified ($β$-dependent) antiholomorphic propagators. Due to the absence of a sensible definition of the integrated vertex operator, there is still no ordinary pre…
We combine old and new quantum field theoretic arguments to show that any theory of stable or metastable higher spin particles can be coupled to gravity only when the gravity sector has a stringy structure. Metastable higher spin particles, free or interacting, cannot couple to gravity while preserving causality unless there exist higher spin states in the gravitational sector much below the Planck scale $M_{\rm pl}$. We obtain an upper bound on the mass $Λ_{\rm gr}$ of the lightest higher spin particle in the gravity sector in terms of quantities in the non-gravitational sector. We invoke the…
We study the scaling law of the energy spectrum of classical strings on AdS_5 x S^5, in particular, in the SL(2) sector for large S (AdS spin) and fixed J (S^1 \subset S^5 spin). For any finite gap solution, we identify the limit in which the energy exhibits the logarithmic scaling in S, characteristic to the anomalous dimension of low-twist gauge theory operators. Our result therefore shows that the log S scaling, first observed by Gubser, Klebanov and Polyakov for the folded string, is universal also on the string side, suggesting another interesting window to explore the AdS/CFT corresponde…
We point out some of the outstanding challenges for embedding inflationary cosmology within string theory studying the process of reheating for models where the inflaton is a closed string mode parameterising the size of an internal cycle of the compactification manifold. A realistic model of inflation must explain the tiny perturbations in the cosmic microwave background radiation and also how to excite the ordinary matter degrees of freedom after inflation, required for the success of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We study these issues focusing on two promising inflationary models embedded in LA…
Extending the formulation for open superstring field theory given in arXiv:1508.00366, we attempt to construct a complete action for heterotic string field theory. The action is non-polynomial in the Ramond string field Psi, and we construct it order by order in Psi. Using a dual formulation in which the role of eta and Q is exchanged, the action is explicitly obtained at the quadratic and quartic order in Psi with the gauge transformations.
We examine the string dual of the recently constructed $\mathcal{N}=6$ superconformal Chern-Simons theory of Aharony, Bergman, Jafferis and Maldacena (ABJM theory). We focus in particular on the $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ sector. We find a sigma-model limit in which the resulting sigma-model is two Landau-Lifshitz models added together. We consider a Penrose limit for which we can approach the $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ sector. Finally, we find a new Giant Magnon solution in the $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ sector corresponding to one magnon in each $SU(2)$. We put these results together to find the full magnon disp…
Light-cone gauge superstring theory in noncritical dimensions corresponds to a worldsheet theory with nonstandard longitudinal part in the conformal gauge. The longitudinal part of the worldsheet theory is a superconformal field theory called X^{\pm} CFT. We show that the X^{\pm} CFT combined with the super-reparametrization ghost system can be described by free variables. It is possible to express the correlation functions in terms of these free variables. Bosonizing the free variables, we construct the spin fields and BRST invariant vertex operators for the Ramond sector in the conformal gau…
We discuss quantum fluctuations of a class of rotating strings in AdS_5 x S^5. In particular, we develop a systematic method to compute the one-loop sigma-model effective actions in closed forms as expansions for large spins. As examples, we explicitly evaluate the leading terms for the constant radii strings in the SO(6) sector with two equal spins, the SU(2) sector, and the SL(2) sector. We also obtain the leading quantum corrections to the space-time energy for these sectors.
We analyze open and mixed sector tree-level amplitudes of N=2 strings in a space-time with (2,2) signature, in the presence of constant B field. The expected topological nature of string amplitudes in the open sector is shown to impose nontrivial constraints on the corresponding noncommutative field theory. In the mixed sector, we first compute a 3-point function and show that the corresponding field theory is written in terms of a generalized *-product. We also analyze a 4-point function (A_{oooc}) of the mixed sector in Theta ---> infinity limit.
We find a new sector of string theory in AdS_5xS^5 describing non-relativistic superstrings in that geometry. The worldsheet theory of non-relativistic strings in AdS_5xS^5 is derived and shown to reduce to a supersymmetric free field theory in AdS_2. Non-relativistic string theory provides a new calculable setting in which to study holography.
{A} Higher Spin Gravity in five dimensions is constructed. It was shown recently that constructing formally consistent classical equations of motion of higher spin gravities is equivalent to finding a certain deformation of a given higher spin algebra. A strong homotopy algebra encoding the interaction vertices then follows. We propose two different and novel realizations of the deformed higher spin algebra in the case of five dimensions: one in terms of the universal enveloping algebra of $su(2,2)$ and the other by means of oscillator variables. Both the new realizations admit supersymmetric …
We consider a conformal system of a string and a particle defined in D=10+2 space-time dimensions. The extra time-like dimension is a gauge artifact and can be eliminated by choosing a gauge in which the SO(10,1) Lorentz symmetry is manifest. The effective theory of string observables is the 11d supergravity. The same theory compactified on T^2 provides a non-perturbative unified picture of the Type IIA, Type IIB and 11d supergravity. This is confirmed by explicit determination of the R^4-terms which are finite and manifestly SL(2,Z) invariant as expected by the U-duality conjecture in nine no…
In four-dimensional N=4 super Yang-Mills (SYM) the SU(3) sub-sector spanned by purely holomorphic fields is isomorphic to the corresponding mixed one spanned by both holomorphic and antiholomorphic fields. This is no longer the case when one considers the marginally deformed N=4 SYM. The mixed SU(3) sector marginally deformed by a complex parameter beta, i.e. SU_q(3) with q=e^{2 iπβ}, has been shown to be integrable at one-loop hep-th/0703150, while it is not the case for the corresponding purely holomorphic one. Moreover, the marginally deformed N=4 SYM also has a gravity dual constructed by …
Starting from the known expression for the three-point correlation functions for Liouville exponentials with generic real coefficients at we can prove the Liouville equation of motion at the level of three-point functions. Based on the analytical structure of the correlation functions we discuss a possible mass shell condition for excitations of noncritical strings and make some observations concerning correlators of Liouville fields.
We probe a slice of the massive winding sector of bosonic string theory from toroidal compactifications of Double Field Theory (DFT). This string subsector corresponds to states containing one left and one right moving oscillators. We perform a generalized Kaluza Klein compactification of DFT on generic $2n$-dimensional toroidal constant backgrounds and show that, up to third order in fluctuations, the theory coincides with the corresponding effective theory of the bosonic string compactified on $n$-dimensional toroidal constant backgrounds, obtained from three-point amplitudes. The comparison…
We attempt to construct the full equations of motion for the Neveu-Schwarz and the Ramond sectors of the heterotic string field theory. Although they are non-polynomial also in the Ramond string field $Ψ$, we can construct them order by order in $Ψ$. Their explicit forms with the gauge transformations are given up to the next-to-next-to-leading order in $Ψ$. We also determine a subset of the terms to all orders. By introducing an auxiliary Ramond string field $Ξ$, we construct a covariant action supplemented with a constraint, which should be imposed on the equations of motion. We propose the …
CMB signatures of gravity-mediated dark radiation in $\mathbf{ΔN_{\rm eff}}$
University of Sussex(萨塞克斯大学);Shanghai Jiao Tong University(上海交通大学);National Astronomical Observatory of Japan(日本国立天文台);The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI)(高级研究大学院大学(SOKENDAI));KEK(高能加速器研究机构);The University of Tokyo(东京大学)
Present knowledge of higher-derivative terms in string effective actions is, with a few exceptions, restricted to the NS-NS sector, a situation which prevents the development of a variety of interesting applications for which the RR terms are relevant. We here provide the formalism as well as efficient techniques to determine the latter directly from string-amplitude calculations. As an illustration of these methods, we compute the dependence of the type-IIB action on the three- and five-form RR field strengths at four-point, genus-one, order-(alpha')^3 level. We explicitly verify that our res…
We resume our discussion of the new orbifold-string theories of permutation-type, focusing in the present series on the algebraic formulation of the general bosonic prototype and especially the target space-times of the theories. In this first paper of the series, we construct one twisted BRST system for each cycle $j$ in each twisted sector $σ$ of the general case, verifying in particular the previously-conjectured algebra $[Q_{i}(σ),Q_{j}(σ)]_{+} =0$ of the BRST charges. The BRST systems then imply a set of extended physical-state conditions for the matter of each cycle at cycle central char…
I review the salient features of three classes of open-string models with broken supersymmetry. These suffice to exhibit, in relatively simple settings, the two phenomena of ``brane supersymmetry'' and ``brane supersymmetry breaking''. In the first class of models, to lowest order supersymmetry is broken both in the closed and in the open sectors. In the second class of models, to lowest order supersymmetry is broken in the closed sector, but is {\it exact} in the open sector, at least for the low-lying modes, and often for entire towers of string excitations. Finally, in the third class of mo…
The field content of the two dimensional string theory consists of the dynamical tachyon field and some nonpropagating fields which consist in the topological sector of this theory. We propose in this paper to study this topological sector as a spacetime gauge theory with a simple centrally extended $w_\infty$ algebra. This $w_\infty$ algebra appears in both the world sheet BRST analysis and the matrix model approach. Since the two dimensional centrally extended Poincaré algebra is naturally embedded in the centrally extended $w_\infty$ algebra, the low energy action for the metric and dilaton…
The recent discovery of non-perturbatively stable two-dimensional string backgrounds and their dual matrix models allows the study of complete scattering matrices in string theory. In this note we adapt work of Moore, Plesser, and Ramgoolam on the bosonic string to compute the exact S-matrices of 0A and 0B string theory in two dimensions. Unitarity of the 0B theory requires the inclusion of massless soliton sectors carrying RR scalar charge as asymptotic states. We propose a regularization of IR divergences and find transition probabilities that distinguish the otherwise energetically degenera…