Validity of Gauge-Fixing Conditions and the Structure of Propagators in Open Superstring Field Theory

TL;DR

This paper analyzes gauge-fixing conditions and propagator structures in open superstring field theory, generalizing previous conditions and demonstrating their validity and implications for gauge choices.

Contribution

It introduces a broad class of gauge-fixing conditions based on world-sheet oscillator zero modes and proves their validity and completeness in fixing gauges.

Findings

Gauge conditions can be generalized using zero modes of world-sheet oscillators.

The structure of propagators reflects the chosen gauge conditions.

Extended gauges involving nonzero modes are also valid and analyzed.

Abstract

We make a detailed analysis on validity of gauge-fixing conditions and the structure of propagators in the Wess-Zumino-Witten-type open superstring field theory. First, we generalize the gauge-fixing conditions considered in JHEP 03 (2012) 030 [arXiv:1201.1761] by the present author et al., and propose a large class of conditions characterized by zero modes of world-sheet oscillators. Then we demonstrate its validity: we prove that gauge degrees of freedom allow us to impose the conditions, and that the conditions fix the gauges completely. Moreover, we elucidate how the information about the gauge choices is reflected in the structure of propagators. The results can be readily extended to the case in which gauge-fixing conditions involve linear combinations of the world-sheet oscillators, including nonzero modes. We investigate also such extended gauges, which are the counterpart of linear $b$-gauges in bosonic string field theory, and obtain the corresponding propagators.