English

A no-ghost theorem for the bosonic Nappi-Witten string

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-10-29 v1

Abstract

We prove a no-ghost theorem for a bosonic string propagating in Nappi-Witten spacetime. This is achieved in two steps. We first demonstrate unitarity for a class of NW/U(1) modules: the norm of any state which is primary with respect to a chosen timelike U(1) is non-negative. We then show that physical states - states satisfying the Virasoro constraints - in a class of modules of an affinisation of the Nappi-Witten algebra are contained in the NW/U(1) modules. Similar to the case of strings on AdS3AdS_3, in order to saturate the spectrum obtained in light-cone quantization we are led to include modules with energy not bounded from below, which are related to modules with energy bounded from below by spectral flow automorphisms.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0907.5366,
  title  = {A no-ghost theorem for the bosonic Nappi-Witten string},
  author = {Gang Chen and Yeuk-Kwan E. Cheung and Zheyong Fan and Jens Fjelstad and Stephen Hwang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0907.5366},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

24 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:30:53.759Z