Chern-Simons Improved Hamiltonians for Strings in Three Space Dimensions

Abstract

The Frenet equation governs the extrinsic geometry of a string in three-dimensional ambient space in terms of the curvature and torsion, which are both scalar functions under string reparameterisations. The description engages a local SO(2) gauge symmetry, which emerges from the invariance of the extrinsic string geometry under local frame rotations around the tangent vector. Here we inquire how to construct the most general SO(2) gauge invariant Hamiltonian of strings, in terms of the curvature and torsion. The construction instructs us to introduce a long-range (self-) interaction between strings, which is mediated by a three dimensional bulk gauge field with a Chern-Simons self-interaction. The results support the proposal that fractional statistics should be prevalent in the case of three dimensional string-like configurations.