Monodromic strings

Abstract

We argue that apart from the standard closed and open strings one may consider a third possibility that we call monodromic strings. The monodromic string propagating on a target looks like an ordinary open string (a mapping from a segment to the target) but its space of states is isomorphic to that of a closed string. It is shown that the monodromic strings naturally appear in T-dualizing closed strings moving on simply connected targets. As a nontrivial topology changing example we show that the monodromic strings on a compact Poisson-Lie group are T-dual to the standard closed strings propagating on the noncompact dual PL group.