The Polyakov path integral over bordered surfaces. II: The closed string off-shell amplitudes (Q1180981)

This is a continuation of part I of this paper [the author, ibid. 128, No. 2, 285-318 (1990; Zbl 0692.58053)] devoted to the open string case. Here the case of closed string is under consideration. Two alternative formulations of the first quantized closed bosonic string are presented. In both approaches the covariant path integral representation of the propagator and of the higher order off-shell amplitudes are constructed. For a wide class of gauges the explicit formulas for off-shell amplitudes are obtained.