String Theory and Non-Riemannian Geometry

Open Access

String Theory and Non-Riemannian Geometry

Jeong-Hyuck Park (朴廷爀) and Shigeki Sugimoto (杉本茂樹)

Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 211601 – Published 19 November 2020

Abstract

The $O (D, D)$ covariant generalized metric, postulated as a truly fundamental variable, can describe novel geometries where the notion of Riemannian metric ceases to exist. Here we quantize a closed string upon such backgrounds and identify flat, anomaly free, non-Riemannian string vacua in the familiar critical dimension, $D = 26$ (or $D = 10$ ). Remarkably, the whole Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin closed string spectrum is restricted to just one level with no tachyon, and matches the linearized equations of motion of double field theory. Taken as an internal space, our non-Riemannian vacua may open up novel avenues alternative to traditional string compactification.

Received 11 August 2020
Accepted 14 October 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.211601

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP³.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Geometry String dualities Strings & branes

Particles & Fields

Authors & Affiliations

Jeong-Hyuck Park (朴廷爀)^1,2,*,† and Shigeki Sugimoto (杉本茂樹)^2,‡

¹Department of Physics, Sogang University, 35 Baekbeom-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul 04107, Korea
²Center for Gravitational Physics, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa Oiwakecho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan