Who changes the string coupling?

DOI10.1016/0550-3213(96)00203-9zbMATH Open0925.53045arXivhep-th/9511077OpenAlexW2034462519MaRDI QIDQ1921044FDOQ1921044

Alexander Belopolsky, Barton Zwiebach

Publication date: 12 August 1996

Published in: Nuclear Physics B (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: In general bosonic closed string backgrounds the ghost-dilaton is not the only state in the semi-relative BRST cohomology that can change the dimensionless string coupling. This fact is used to establish complete dilaton theorems in closed string field theory. The ghost-dilaton, however, is the crucial state: for backgrounds where it becomes BRST trivial we prove that the string coupling becomes an unobservable parameter of the string action. For backgrounds where the matter CFT includes free uncompactified bosons we introduce a refined BRST problem by including the zero-modes "x" of the bosons as legal operators on the complex. We argue that string field theory can be defined on this enlarged complex and that its BRST cohomology captures accurately the notion of a string background. In this complex the ghost-dilaton appears to be the only BRST-physical state changing the string coupling.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9511077

zbMATH Keywords

closed string field theorymatter conformal field theory

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Applications of differential geometry to physics (53Z05) String and superstring theories; other extended objects (e.g., branes) in quantum field theory (81T30)

Cites Work

• Coset construction for extended Virasoro algebras
• Nearby CFTs in the operator formalism: The role of a connection
• Quantum background independence of closed-string field theory
• The dilaton theorem and closed string backgrounds
• New discrete states of strings near a black hole
• Vacuum vertices and the ghost-dilaton
• Target space interpretation of new moduli in 2D string theory

Cited In (15)

• Closed string vertex operators with various ghost number
• On the picture dependence of Ramond-Ramond cohomology
• A worldsheet description of flux compactifications
• D-branes and physical states
• Open-closed string field theory in the large \(N\) limit
• Is the string coupling constant invariant under \(T\)-duality?
• Oriented open-closed string theory revisited
• On the existence of heterotic-string and type-II-superstring field theory vertices
• String center of mass operator and its effect on BRST cohomology
• BPS algebras in 2D string theory
• Closed string theory without level-matching at the free level
• Covariant computation of the low-energy effective action of the heterotic superstring
• The classical cosmological constant of open-closed string field theory
• The nilpotent structure of open-closed string field theory
• Extra dimensions in superstring theory

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