Relativistic rigid particles: Classical tachyons and quantum anomalies

Causal rigid particles whose action includes anarbitrary dependence on the world-line extrinsic curvature are considered. General classes of solutions are constructed, includingcausal tachyonic ones. The Hamiltonian formulation is developed in detail except for one degenerate situation for which only partial results are given and requiring a separate analysis. However, for otherwise generic rigid particles, the precise specification of Hamiltonian gauge symmetries is obtained with in particular the identification of the Teichmüller and modular spaces for these systems. Finally, canonical quantisation of the generic case is performed paying special attention to the phase space restriction due to causal propagation. A mixed Lorenz-gravitational anomaly is found in the commutator of Lorentz boosts with world-line reparametrisations. The subspace of gauge invariant physical states is therefore not invariant under Lorentz transformations. Consequences for rigid strings and membranes are also discussed.