A solvable string on a Lorentzian surface

Abstract

It is shown that there are nonlinear sigma models which are Darboux integrable and possess a solvable Vessiot group in addition to those whose Vessiot groups are central extensions of semi-simple Lie groups. They govern harmonic maps between Minkowski space $\mathbb{R}^{1,1}$ and certain complete, non-constant curvature 2-metrics. The solvability of the Vessiot group permits a reduction of the general Cauchy problem to quadrature. We treat the specific case of harmonic maps from Minkowski space into a non-constant curvature Lorentzian 2-metric, $\boldsymbol{\lambda}$. Despite the completeness of $\boldsymbol{\lambda}$ we exhibit a Cauchy problem with real analytic initial data which blows up in finite time. We also derive a hyperbolic Weierstrass representation formula for all harmonic maps from $\mathbb{R}^{1,1}$ into $\boldsymbol{\lambda}$.