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Open superstring field theory I: gauge fixing, ghost structure, and propagator

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Abstract

The WZW form of open superstring field theory has linearized gauge invariances associated with the BRST operator Q and the zero mode η 0 of the picture minus-one fermionic superconformal ghost. We discuss gauge fixing of the free theory in a simple class of gauges using the Faddeev-Popov method. We find that the world-sheet ghost number of ghost and antighost string fields ranges over all integers, except one, and at any fixed ghost number, only a finite number of picture numbers appear. We calculate the propagators in a variety of gauges and determine the field-antifield content and the free master action in the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism. Unlike the case of bosonic string field theory, the resulting master action is not simply related to the original gauge-invariant action by relaxing the constraint on the ghost and picture numbers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics and Astronomy, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, P.O. Box 39040, Ramat Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Michael Kroyter

  2. Institute of Physics, University of Tokyo,, Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 153-8902, Japan

    Yuji Okawa & Shingo Torii

  3. Institute of Physics AS CR, Na Slovance 2, Prague 8, Czech Republic

    Martin Schnabl

  4. Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Barton Zwiebach

Authors
  1. Michael Kroyter
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  2. Yuji Okawa
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  3. Martin Schnabl
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  4. Shingo Torii
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  5. Barton Zwiebach
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuji Okawa.

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ArXiv ePrint: 1201.1761

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Kroyter, M., Okawa, Y., Schnabl, M. et al. Open superstring field theory I: gauge fixing, ghost structure, and propagator. J. High Energ. Phys. 2012, 30 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2012)030

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2012)030

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