Global conformal gauge in string theory

Abstract

It was supposed for fifty years that the conformal gauge in string theory exists globally on the whole string world sheet. In fact, almost all results were obtained under this assumption. However, this statement was proved only locally in some neighbourhood of an arbitrary point on the worldsheet, and its extension is far from being obvious. In the present paper we prove that the conformal gauge does exists globally on the string worldsheet represented by an infinite strip with straight parallel boundaries.