On the definiteness of the conformal anomaly in nonconformal gauges

TL;DR

This paper addresses ambiguities in calculating the critical dimension of bosonic strings in nonconformal gauges, resolving them through a background covariant approach to ensure consistency in the energy momentum tensor product.

Contribution

It introduces a background covariant method to resolve ambiguities in the conformal anomaly calculation for bosonic strings in nonconformal gauges.

Findings

Ambiguities in energy momentum tensor products are resolved.

Background covariance ensures consistent critical dimension calculations.

Method applies to harmonic and deDonder gauges.

Abstract

The critical dimension of the bosonic string in the harmonic and the deDonder gauge may be calculated from the time ordered product of two energy momentum tensors. We show that recently found ambiguities within that method in nonconformal gauges can be resolved by a treatment respecting background covariance.