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Exactly solvable model of superstring in Ramond-Ramond plane wave background

R. R. Metsaev·A. A. Tseytlin
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Abstract

We describe in detail the solution of type IIB superstring theory in the maximally supersymmetric plane-wave background with constant null Ramond-Ramond 5-form field strength. The corresponding light-cone Green-Schwarz action found in hep-th/0112044 is quadratic in both bosonic and fermionic coordinates. We find the spectrum of the light-cone Hamiltonian and the string representation of the supersymmetry algebra. The superstring Hamiltonian has a ``harmonic-oscillator'' form in both the string-oscillator and the zero-mode parts and thus has discrete spectrum in all 8 transverse directions. We analyze the structure of the zero-mode sector of the theory, establishing the precise correspondence between the lowest-lying ``massless'' string states and the type IIB supergravity fluctuation modes in the plane-wave background. The zero-mode spectrum has certain similarity to the supergravity spectrum in AdS_5 x S^5 of which the plane-wave background is a special limit. We also compare the plane-wave string spectrum with expected form of the light-cone gauge spectrum of superstring in AdS_5 x S^5.

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R. R. Metsaev, A. A. Tseytlin. 2002-06-10. Exactly solvable model of superstring in Ramond-Ramond plane wave background. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.65.126004

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