Closed String Tachyon Condensation in Supercritical Strings and RG Flows

TL;DR

This paper establishes a connection between RG flows in two-dimensional gravity and tachyon condensation in supercritical string theories, providing a method to infer tachyon potential shapes from RG flow analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach linking RG flows to tachyon potentials in supercritical strings, and suggests a way to derive potentials for (sub)critical strings via supercritical string analysis.

Findings

Explicit relation between RG flows and tachyon condensation

Method to determine tachyon potential shape from RG flows

Proposal to analyze supercritical strings to understand (sub)critical string tachyons

Abstract

We show an explicit relation between an RG flow of a two-dimensional gravity and an on-shell tachyon condensation in the corresponding string theory, in the case when the string theory is supercritical. The shape of the tachyon potential in this case can, in principle, be obtained by examining various RG flows. We also argue that the shape of tachyon potential for a (sub)critical string can be obtained by analyzing a supercritical string which is obtained from the (sub)critical string.