Review of W Strings

C. N. Pope

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arXiv · hep-th/9204093

Review of W Strings

C. N. Pope

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Abstract

We review some of the recent developments in the construction of $W$-string theories. These are generalisations of ordinary strings in which the two-dimensional ``worldsheet'' theory, instead of being a gauging of the Virasoro algebra, is a gauging of a higher-spin extension of the Virasoro algebra---a $W$ algebra. Despite the complexity of the (non-linear) $W$ algebras, it turns out that the spectrum can be computed completely and explicitly for more or less any $W$ string. The result is equivalent to a set of spectra for Virasoro strings with unusual central charge and intercepts.

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C. N. Pope. 1992-04-28. Review of W Strings. https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9204093

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