Open superstring field theory I: gauge fixing, ghost structure, and propagator
Abstract
The WZW form of open superstring field theory has linearized gauge invariances associated with the BRST operator Q and the zero mode eta_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.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1201.1761,
title = {Open superstring field theory I: gauge fixing, ghost structure, and propagator},
author = {Michael Kroyter and Yuji Okawa and Martin Schnabl and Shingo Torii and Barton Zwiebach},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1201.1761},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
LaTeX2e, 34 pages, no figures; v2: typos corrected