Dual-resonance models

Dual-resonance models are treated both as S-matrix theories and as systems of interacting strings. We show how Veneziano was able to construct a dual four-point amplitude with narrow resonances and rising Regge trajectories. The construction is generalized to the N-point amplitude in the manifestly dual manner suggested by Koba and Nielsen. We develop the operator formalism which exhibits the factorization property of the above amplitude. The related questions of ghost elimination and null states are discussed. Models with extra degrees of freedom and, in particular, the Neveu-Schwarz-Ramond model with spin, are treated. The latter model has a quark-line spectrum of mesons, but it possesses massless vector mesons and fermions. It is shown how the operator formalism is related to a quantized string. The theory of such a string is developed, with particular emphasis on the ghost-free “Coulomb-gauge” quantization. By constructing theories of interacting strings, we reproduce the dual-model S-matrix. A brief account is given of the theory of loops, in which one attempts to improve on the narrow-resonance model in a perturbative manner.