Strings in Background Fields

Abstract

In this paper free quantum theories are derived solely from their underlying symmetry group without reference to a Lagrangean or classical physics and then interactions are introduced by making use of automorphism of the symmetry algebra. It is shown how the solution of a theory interacting with background fields is obtained exactly and purely algebraically from the free theory by the action of a linear operator. The method is first applied to the harmonic oscillator interacting with a conserved current and in a second example to string theory in the presence of constant dilaton, Kalb-Ramond or gravitational fields. The derived interaction for the Kalb-Ramond background is periodic and the interactions with a dilaton respectively a gravitational field exhibit a strong-weak-coupling duality. Furthermore, it is proposed in this paper to interpret T-duality as a position-momentum duality on compact space.