1992/01/23 by Eric Smith
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/0550-3213(92)90185-e
published as Nucl.Phys. B382 (1992) 229-241 · 22 pages
arxiv created 1992/01/23 · openalex publication_date 1992/09/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Explicit construction of the light-cone gauge quantum theory of bosonic strings in 1+1 spacetime dimensions reveals unexpected structures. One is the existence of a gauge choice that gives a free action at the price of propagating ghosts and a nontrivial BRST charge. Fixing this gauge leaves a U(1) Kac-Moody algebra of residual symmetry, generated by a conformal tensor of rank two and a conformal scalar. Another is that the BRST charge made from these currents is nilpotent when the action includes a linear dilaton background, independent of the particular value of the dilaton gradient. Spacetime Lorentz invariance in this theory is still elusive, however, because of the linear dilaton background and the nature of the gauge symmetries.