Physics – High Energy Physics – High Energy Physics - Theory
Scientific paper
1994-11-08
Nucl.Phys. B441 (1995) 76-118
Physics
High Energy Physics
High Energy Physics - Theory
51 pages, plain tex with phyzzx, two uuencoded figures
Scientific paper
10.1016/0550-3213(95)00022-K
The zero-momentum ghost-dilaton is a non-primary BRST physical state present in every bosonic closed string background. It is given by the action of the BRST operator on another state $\x$, but remains nontrivial in the semirelative BRST cohomology. When local coordinates arise from metrics we show that dilaton and $\x$ insertions compute Riemannian curvature and geodesic curvature respectively. A proper definition of a CFT deformation induced by the dilaton requires surface integrals of the dilaton and line integrals of $\x$. Surprisingly, the ghost number anomaly makes this a trivial deformation. While dilatons cannot deform conformal theories, they actually deform conformal string backgrounds, showing in a simple context that a string background is not necessarily the same as a CFT. We generalize the earlier proof of quantum background independence of string theory to show that a dilaton shift amounts to a shift of the string coupling in the field-dependent part of the quantum string action. Thus the ``dilaton theorem'', familiar for on-shell string amplitudes, holds off-shell as a consequence of an exact symmetry of the string action.
Bergman Oren
Zwiebach Barton
No associations
LandOfFree
The Dilaton Theorem and Closed String Backgrounds does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with The Dilaton Theorem and Closed String Backgrounds, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Dilaton Theorem and Closed String Backgrounds will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-230393