Superstring propagation through supergravitational shockwaves. (English) Zbl 0992.81518
Summary: In all previous works on strings (and superstrings) in curved space-times, explicit calculations were performed only in purely bosonic gravitational backgrounds. Here, we propose to introduce a background containing also fermionic degrees of freedom, solution of the \(N=1\) supergravity equations in \(D\) dimensions. We find an explicit \(N=1\) linearized supergravity shockwave solution giving the spin-\(\frac 32\) Rarita-Schwinger field, and an exact (full nonlinear) gravitational shock-wave bosonic part. We study a Green-Schwarz superstring propagating in such a supergravity background. We write and solve the superstring equations. Contrary to the purely bosonic shockwave case (in which spinor-string propagation is free), spinor-string coordinates couple here nontrivially to the transverse bosonic coordinates through the fermionic background. We find that outgoing fermionic modes are mixed with ingoing bosonic (and fermionic) modes. This leads to a new feature of particle transmutation between bosons and fermions, described by the superstring ground states (and also by the excited states). The presence of the bosonic-fermionic background provides in string theory a natural physical mechanism to transform bosons into fermions (and vice versa).
MSC:
| 81T30 | String and superstring theories; other extended objects (e.g., branes) in quantum field theory |
| 81T20 | Quantum field theory on curved space or space-time backgrounds |
| 83E30 | String and superstring theories in gravitational theory |
| 83F05 | Relativistic cosmology |
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