Path integrals for the Green-Schwarz superstring

Thesis/Dissertation · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:5660711

Carlip, S J

The goal of this dissertation is to develop path integral techniques for the evaluation of amplitudes for the Green-Schwarz superstring. The Green-Schwarz Lagrangian provides a manifestly supersymmetric alternative to the more widely used Neveu-Schwarz-Ramond Lagrangian. Until now, however, path integrals for the Green-Schwarz model have rarely been considered, primarily because of difficulties in gauge-fixing the local fermionic symmetry of the action. It is shown that these difficulties can be overcome for the heterotic string. As a consequence, the standard light cone gauge condition may be applied to the fermions, without necessarily imposing (singular) light cone gauge on the bosons. The resulting theory has no conformal or local Lorentz anomalies. The formalism is applied to the calculation of a number of amplitudes. Although fermionic light cone gauge is not Lorentz invariant, the three level propagator is shown to be invariant up to physically irrelevant phases, and to have the correct pole structure. A number of loop amplitudes are then calculated. It is demonstrated that as long as supersymmetry is unbroken, the vacuum energy vanishes to all orders in perturbation theory, and one- and two-particle S-matrix elements for massless particles receive no higher loop corrections. The one loop amplitude at finite temperature is also investigated; it gives the correct sum of free energies of string modes.

• Research Organization: Texas Univ., Austin (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5660711
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

645400* -- High Energy Physics-- Field Theory
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
COMPOSITE MODELS
CONFORMAL INVARIANCE
CORRECTIONS
EXTENDED PARTICLE MODEL
FEYNMAN PATH INTEGRAL
FIELD THEORIES
INTEGRALS
INVARIANCE PRINCIPLES
LAGRANGIAN FIELD THEORY
LIGHT CONE
LORENTZ INVARIANCE
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PARTICLE MODELS
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
QUARK MODEL
SPACE-TIME
STRING MODELS
SUPERSYMMETRY
SYMMETRY
SYMMETRY BREAKING
WILSON LOOP