Spin Structures in String Theory

Abstract

The effect of modular transformations which change the spin structure of the string world-sheet is discussed. Invariance of string perturbation theory under such transformations forces us to sum over different spin structures with well defined coefficients. The sum over spin structures amounts to performing the GSO projections. We explain why the GSO projection is compatible with unitarity; that is, why wrong G-parity states are not produced in pairs. On the contrary, we show that unitarity requires either the GSO projection, which gives a supersymmetric spectrum, or another projection which removes the massless spin-3/2 particle from the spectrum. This is in agreement with the familiar idea that a consistent theory with a massless spin-3/2 particle must be supersymmetric. These considerations lead us to find four new string theories in ten dimensions. Although they all have tachyons, they are otherwise consistent, modular invariant and unitary. One of these theories is particularly interesting since it has anomaly free chiral fermions in ten dimensions.