Superstring theory in and plane waves
May, 2004101 pages
Supervisor:
Thesis: PhD - Shiraz Minwalla()
- Harvard, U.
- Harvard U.
Report number:
- UMI-31-31991
Citations per year
0 Citations
Abstract:
This thesis is devoted to the study of string theory in AdS3 and its applications to recent developments in string theory. The difficulties associated with formulating a consistent string theory in AdS3 and its underlying SL(2; R) WZW model are explained. We describe how these diculties can be overcome by assuming that the SL(2; R) WZW model contains spectral ow symmetry. The existence of spectral ow symmetry in the fully quantum treatment is proved by a calculation of the one-loop string partition function. We consider Euclidean AdS3 with the time direction periodically identied, and compute the torus partition function in this background. The string spectrum can be reproduced by viewing the one-loop calculation as the free energy of a gas of strings, thus providing a rigorous proof of the results based on spectral ow arguments. Next, we turn to spacetimes that are quotients of AdS3, which include the BTZ black hole and conical spaces. Strings propagating in the conical space are described by taking an orbifold of strings in AdS3. We show that the twisted states of these orbifolds can be obtained by fractional spectral ow. We show that the shift in the ground state energy usually associated with orbifold twists is absent in this case, and oer a unied framework in which to view spectral flow. Lastly, we consider the RNS superstrings in AdS3 S 3 M, where M may be K3 or T 4 , based on supersymmetric extensions of SL(2; R) and SU(2) WZW models. We construct the physical states and calculate the spectrum. A subsector of this theory describes strings propagating in the six dimensional plane wave obtained by the Penrose limit of AdS3 S 3 M. We reproduce the plane wave spectrum by taking J and the radius to innity. We show that the plane wave spectrum actually coincides with the large J spectrum at xed radius, i.e. in AdS3 S 3 . Relation to some recent topics of interest such as the Frolov-Tseytlin string and strings with critical tension or in zero radius AdS are discussed.- Thesis
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