String field theory with chiral coordinates

Abstract

Interesting string theories, such as the heterotic string, involve chiral coordinates, that is coordinates which are either right-moving or left-moving on the world sheet. In this paper the field theoretic formulation of such theories is studied with most emphasis on the light-cone gauge method although the main techniques would also apply in the various covariant approaches to string field theory. In the heterotic string the internal symmetry is described in terms of eight left-moving complex bosonic coordinates in a manner which parallels the treatment of fermionic Grassmann coordinates. The wave functions, and hence the free string fields, are described in these coordinates and the three-string interaction is derived from the requirements of supersymmetry and Lorentz invariance both in its functional form and in terms of its oscillator modes.