Non critical super strings on world sheets of constant curvature

We consider correlation functions in Neveu-Schwarz string theory coupled to two dimensional gravity. The actionfor the 2D gravity consists of the string induced Liouville action and the Jackiw-Teitelboim action describing pure 2D gravity. Then gravitational dressed dimensions of vertex operators are equal to their bare conformal dimensions. There are two possible interpretations of the model. Considering the 2D dilaton and the Liouville field as additional target space coordinates one gets ad+2-dimensional critical string. In thed-dimensional non critical string picture gravitational fields retain their original meaning and ford=4 one can get a mass spectrum via consistency requirements. In both cases a GSO projection is possible.     

The scattering of strings by a black hole

We study the elastic and inelastic scattering of strings by a Schwarzschild's black hole. Pair creation takes place (and in all the modes) as a consequence of the composite structure (oscillator modes) of the string. The S-matrix amplitudes including the pair-creation rate are found at first order in √α'/R_S (√α' = Planck's length and R_S = Schwarzschild's radius). Explicit computations are made in the weak-field expansion in powers of (R_S/b)^D−3 (b = impact parameter of the string center of mass). The deflection angle and cross sections are found. The quantum string corrections to the gravitational analogue of Rutherford's scattering are computed (these are of order α'²). The pair-creation or radiation amplitude we find here is of order α', it is non-thermal and of different origin than Hawking radiation.     

On the evolution of global strings in the early universe

We find that a bent global string straightens itself out by dissipation into Nambu-Goldstone (NG) bosons in the order of one oscillation time and that the spectrum of radiated NG bosons is 1/k. In the early universe, the assumption that there is one global string per causal horizon is justified after an initial period during which the effect of the primordial plasma on the motion of the strings is non-negligible. We find that the upper bound that axion radiation by strings places on the axion decay constant is comparable to, but not more stringent than the one derived from coherent oscillations of the axion field, i.e. ∫_a ≲ 10¹²GeV. We also discuss the model-dependence of this bound.     

Supersymmetry breaking,open strings and M-theory

We study supersymmetry breaking by Scherk-Schwarz compactifications in type I string theory. While in the gravitational sector all mass splittings are proportional to a (large) compactification radius, supersymmetry remains unbroken for the massless excitations of D-branes orthogonal to the large dimension. In this sector, supersymmetry breaking can then be mediated by gravitational interactions alone, that are expected to be suppressed by powers of the Planck mass. The mechanism is non-perturbative from the heterotic viewpoint and requires a compactification radius at intermediate energies of order 10¹²−10¹⁴ GeV This can also explain the value of Newton's constant if the string scale is close to the unification scale, of order 10¹⁶ GeV.     

Superconducting strings

It is known that certain spontaneously broken gauge theories give rise to stable strings or vortex lines. In this paper it is shown that under certain conditions such strings behave like superconducting wires whose passage through astrophysical magnetic fields would generate a variety of striking and perhaps observable effects. The superconducting charge carriers may be either bosons (if a charged Higgs field has an expectation value in the core of the string) or fermions (if charged fermions are trapped in zero modes along the string, as is known to occur in certain circumstances). They might be observable as synchrotron sources or as sources of high-energy cosmic rays. If the charge carriers are ordinary quarks and leptons, the strings have important baryon number violating interactions with magnetic fields; such a string, traversing a galactic magnetic field of 10^?6 G, creates baryons (or antibaryons) at a rate of order 10¹² particles/cm of string per second.     

Little heterotic strings

We discuss toroidal orbifolds of the E ₈×E ₈ heterotic string, in which the free-fermionic Higgs–matter splitting is implemented by a shift in the internal lattice coupled with the fermion numbers of the gauge degrees of freedom. We consider models in which some choices of the orbifold result in the projection of the graviton. In the models that we consider the projection also results in flipping the spin–statistics assignments in the massive string spectrum, whereas the massless spectrum retains the conventional spin–statistics assignments. We argue that the partition functions are mathematically consistent for one- and multi-loop amplitudes, owning to the existence of supersymmetry in the spectrum. A duality between different models at non-zero temperature is briefly discussed.     

Small E8 instantons and tensionless non-critical strings

T-duality is used to extract information on an instanton of zero size in the E₈ × E₈ heterotic string. We discuss the possibility of the appearance of a tensionless anti-self-dual non-critical string through an implementation of the mechanism suggested by Strominger of two coincident 5-branes. It is argued that when an instanton shrinks to zero size a tensionless non-critical string appears at the core of the instanton. It is further conjectured that the appearance of tensionless strings in the spectrum leads to new phase transitions in six dimensions in much the same way as massless particles do in four dimensions.     

Heterotic strings on homogeneous spaces

We construct heterotic string backgrounds corresponding to families of homogeneous spaces as exact conformal field theories. They contain left cosets of compact groups by their maximal tori supported by NS‐NS 2‐forms and gauge field fluxes. We give the general formalism and modular‐invariant partition functions, then we consider some examples such as SU (2)/U (1) ~ S² (already described in a previous paper) and the SU (3)/U(1)² flag space. As an application we construct new supersymmetric string vacua with magnetic fluxes and a linear dilaton.     

Cosmological effects of superconducting strings

Superconducting cosmic strings are a plausible consequence of symmetry breaking in grand unified gauge theories. The luminosity in electromagnetic radiation of an oscillating current-carrying loop may substantially exceed the luminosity in gravitational radiation. In the typical case considered, the energy released electromagnetically is 10⁴⁹ erg s⁻¹, or 10⁶⁶ erg in toto. Several consequences follow from this, the most interesting of which is the possibility that such loops may heat their surroundings, generating large, dense spherical shells of gas. Galaxies forming on these gravitationally unstable shells at moderate redshift will be seen at the present epoch to lie on bubbles having radii in the range 10–20h⁻¹ Mpc if the initial ratio of luminosity in electromagnetic waves to that in gravitational wavess is > 10⁻³ for mass/length 10²² g cm⁻¹. The required primordial energy density in magnetic fields is > 3 × 10⁻⁹ of the radiation energy density, if the charge carriers are bosons or superheavy fermions. Since these shells fill up space, the galaxies will have a distribution similar to that found in a recent survey of the northern sky. When the current saturates, a loop will emit particles copiously, and may be seen as an X-ray source at z ∼ 10–50. Such loops may also contribute significantly to the hard X-ray and γ-ray backgrounds and to 10²⁰ eV cosmic rays.     

Probabilistic estimates of the number of cosmic strings

The dependences of the mean expected number of cosmic strings on their redshift up to the surface of last scattering have been derived. The calculations are based on the geometric probability of a straight string segment crossing a given field and on information about the absence of strings when they are searched for via their gravitational lensing effects in optical catalogs. It is shown that there are no strings for redshifts 0 < z < 1.954, but the expected number of strings for 0 < z < 5 can be no more than 2.1 × 10³ at the 95% confidence level. The expected number of strings for redshifts up to z = 1100 can be no more than 2.4 × 10⁴ at the 95% confidence level. The latter estimate is sensitive to a priori information about the absence of cosmic strings in the redshift range 0 < z < 1.954 in a field of 4.48 square degrees in optical catalogs; it is smaller than the estimate without allowance for this information by 6%.     

Quantum dynamics of strings in black hole space times

We quantize a bosonic string in the D-dimensional Schwarzschild geometry following the method recently proposed by the present authors. This allows us to take into account strong-curvature effects of the black hole. We start from the exact motion of the center of mass of the string, and compute the quantum fluctuations around it to first and second order. This provides the dominant term for physical magnitudes in an expansion in powers of √α' / R_S (√α' = l_pl = Planck length, R_S = Schwarzschild's radius). The mass spectrum and critical dimension are the same as in flat space-time but there is non-trivial elastic and inelastic scattering by the black hole. Ingoing and outgoing modes are introduced in a light-cone-gauge formalism. A linear transformation relating these modes desribes two main effects: (i) polarization changes and (ii) mixing of the particle and antiparticle modes reversing, at the same time, their right or left character.     

Anomalies and effective lagrangians of superconducting cosmic strings

We study the effective lagrangians of superconducting cosmic strings and the underlying anomaly structure leading to various effects. We show that fermionic superconducting cosmic (Nielsen-Olesen) strings arise as a consequence of a mixed anomaly of the form E · B′ where E is the electromagnetic field strength and B′ the core flux of the string. We show how this controls superconductivity, the index theorems, topological mass terms on domain walls, and string-axion interactions. We contrast this to global strinfs with Chern-Simons currents.     

Non-archimedean strings

A full set of factorized, dual, crossing-symmetric tree-level N-point amplitudes is constructed for non-archimedean closed strings. Momentum components and space-time coordinates are still valued in the field of real numbers, quantum amplitudes in that of complex numbers. It is the world-sheet parameters, which one integrates over, that become p-adic. For the closed string the parameters are valued in quadratic extensions of the fields Q_p of p-adic numbers (p = prime).     

Cosmic strings in a space with topology M2 × V2

For the case of a space-time with topology M₂×V₂, we show that the equation of motion of an infinitely thin string has solutions that can naturally be called the laws of motion of a straight string. For the case of a locally plane conical space, the solutions are written explicitly. We show that such motions of a test string are not followed by gravitational radiation.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 11, pp. 75–79, November, 1991.     

String quantization in accelerated frames and black holes

We quantize a closed bosonic string in a light-cone gauge in Rindler (uniformly accelerated) space-time and apply it to the Schwarzschild-Kruskal manifold. Inertial and accelerated particle states of the string associated to positive frequency modes with respect to the inertial and Rindler times respectively, are defined. There is a stretching effect of the string due to the presence of an event horizon. We explicitly solve the dynamical constraints leaving as physical degrees of freedom only those transverse to the acceleration. Different mass formulae are introduced depending on whether the centre of mass of the string has uniform speed or uniform acceleration. The expectation value of the Rindler (Schwarzschild) number-mode operator in the string around state (tachyon) results equal to a thermal spectrum at the Hawking-Unruh temperature T_s=α/2π (∼ M_Pl(M_Pl/M)^1/(D−3), where M is the black hole mass). We find T₀=M′/2π where M′ is the accelerated ground state string mass and T₀ the temperature T_s in dimensionless frequency units. Correlation functions of string coordinates and vertex operators and their Fourier transforms in accelerated time (string response functions) are computed and their thermal properties analyzed.     

Search for strong gravitational lensing effect in the current GRB data of BATSE

Because gamma-ray bursts(GRBs)trace the high-z universe,there is an appreciable probability for a GRB to be gravitational lensed by galaxies in the universe.Herein we consider the gravitational lensing effect of GRBs contributed by the dark matter halos in galaxies.Assuming that all halos have the singular isothermal sphere(SIS)mass profile in the mass range 1010h?1M?M2×1013h?1M?and all GRB samples follow the intrinsic redshift distribution and luminosity function derived from the Swift LGRBs sample,we calculated the gravitational lensing probability in BATSE,Swift/BAT and Fermi/GBM GRBs,respectively.With an derived probability result in BATSE GRBs,we searched for lensed GRB pairs in the BATSE5B GRB Spectral catalog.The search did not find any convincing gravitationally lensed events.We discuss our result and future observations for GRB lensing observation.     

A path-dependent supersymmetric field theory of electric and magnetic charges

We present a supersymmetric field theory of electric and magnetic charges with a genuine string. As a consequence of the conventional and representation preserving constraints, the superstring variable has only a bosonic (space-time) part ξ^μ. We discuss the string-independence of the theory.     

Integrability lost: Chaotic dynamics of classical strings on a confining holographic background

It is known that classical string dynamics on pure AdS₅×S⁵${\mathit{AdS}}_5\times S^5$ is integrable and plays an important role in solvability. This is a deep and central issue in holography. Here we investigate similar classical integrability for a more realistic confining background and provide a negative answer. The dynamics of a class of simple string configurations on AdS soliton background can be mapped to the dynamics of a set of non-linearly coupled oscillators. In a suitable limit of small fluctuations we discuss a quasi-periodic analytic solution of the system. Numerics indicates chaotic behavior as the fluctuations are not small. Integrability implies the existence of a regular foliation of the phase space by invariant manifolds. Our numerics shows how this nice foliation structure is eventually lost due to chaotic motion. We also verify a positive Lyapunov index for chaotic orbits. Our dynamics is roughly similar to other known non-integrable coupled oscillator systems like Hénon–Heiles equations.     

Effects of Pauli paramagnetism on superconducting fluctuations

We discuss the effects of the Pauli paramagnetism on the excess conductivity σ^fl due to fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter. We derived a formula for σ^fl for a thin film placed in a magnetic field of an arbitrary orientation α. It was found that σ^fl has a universal behavior as a function of some parameterp which depends on α and ΔH=H-H _c. If ΔH is kept constant and σ^fl is measured as a function of α, in the absence of the Pauli paramagnetism σ^fl is maximum when the field is parallel to the film and is minimum when the field is perpendicular. But in high field superconductors due to the effect of the Pauli paramagnetism σ^fl becomes maximum at some intermediate field orientation. We also discussed the excess conductivity in magnetic alloys in which impurity spins are aligned by an external magnetic field. It was shown that in this case one should expect, with certain strengths of the external field, the excess conductivity which is non-monotonic in temperature.     

Limiting currents in fermionic superconducting strings

It is usually assumed that the critical current in a fermionic superconducting string is of order em, where m is the in vacuo mass of the charge carrier. It is argued here that in reality the critical current is of order em²R, where R is the string's radius of curvature. This has some important consequences: in particular, scattering amongst the charge carriers can be shown to limit the current to less than roughly 10⁹ GeV.