Abstract
We present a worldsheet theory that describes maps into a curved target space equipped with a B-field and dilaton. The conditions for the theory to be consistent at the quantum level can be computed exactly, and are that the target space fields obey the nonlinear d = 10 supergravity equations of motion, with no higher curvature terms. The path integral is constrained to obey a generalization of the scattering equations to curved space. Remarkably, the supergravity field equations emerge as quantum corrections to these curved space scattering equations.
Highlights
A new first-order worldsheet theory has been proposed [11,12,13] whose spectrum consists only of the states of supergravity
We present a worldsheet theory that describes maps into a curved target space equipped with a B-field and dilaton
The appropriate generalization is closely related to the Hamiltonian framework of worldline supersymmetry in supersymmetric quantum mechanics
Summary
We begin by briefly reviewing the model of [11] that describes gravity perturbatively around flat space. In the absence of vertex operators, at genus zero we can fix a gauge in which e, χand χ all vanish. In this gauge, the currents disappear from the action, which becomes free. An important point is that the linearized field equations on the target space emerge from double contractions between the vertex operators and the currents G0, G0 and H0 in the BRST operator, rather than from requiring that they have the correct anomalous conformal weight (as would be the case in usual string theory). Replacing the worldline description of supergravity by a chiral worldsheet description allows one to trade the problem of computing amplitudes by summing over all graph topologies for the problem of finding solutions of the scattering equations
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