String Perturbation Theory Around Dynamically Shifted Vacuum

TL;DR

This paper develops a systematic method for performing string perturbation theory around dynamically shifted vacua caused by quantum corrections, addressing challenges in non-conformal backgrounds in string theory.

Contribution

It introduces a novel systematic procedure for quantizing string theories around non-classical, quantum-corrected backgrounds that are not solutions to classical equations.

Findings

Provides a framework for perturbation theory around shifted vacua.

Addresses quantization in non-conformal, quantum-corrected backgrounds.

Enables analysis of string theories with tachyonic mass shifts.

Abstract

In some string theories, e.g. SO(32) heterotic string theory on Calabi-Yau manifolds, a massless field with a tree level potential can acquire a tachyonic mass at the one loop level, forcing us to quantize the theory around a new background that is not a solution to the classical equations of motion and hence is not described by a conformally invariant world-sheet theory. We describe a systematic procedure for carrying out string perturbation theory around such backgrounds.