A Ramond-Neveu-Schwarz string with one end fixed

Abstract

We study an RNS string with one end fixed on a $D0$-brane and the other end free as a qualitative guide to the spectrum of hadrons containing one very heavy quark. The mixed boundary conditions break half of the world-sheet supersymmetry. Boson-fermion masses can still be matched if space-time is 9 dimensional; thus SO(8) triality still plays a role in the spectrum, although full space-time supersymmetry does not survive. We quantize the system in a temporal-like gauge where $X^0 \sim \tau$. Only odd $\alpha$ and even $d$ R modes remain, while the NS oscillators $b$ become odd-integer moded. Although the gauge choice eliminates negative-norm states at the outset, there are still even-moded Virasoro and even(odd) moded super-Virasoro constraints to be imposed in the NS(R) sectors. The Casimir energy is now positive in both sectors; there are no tachyons. States for $\alpha' M^2 \leq 3$ are explicitly constructed and found to be organized into SO(8) irreps by (super)constraints, which include a novel "$\sqrt{L_0}$" operator in the NS and $\Gamma^0 \pm I$ in the R sectors. GSO projections are not allowed. The pre-constraint states above the ground state have matching multiplicities, indicating spacetime supersymmetry is broken by the (super)constraints. A distinctive physical signature of the system is a slope twice that of the open RNS string. When both ends are fixed, all leading and subleading trajectories are eliminated, resulting in a spectrum qualitatively similar to the $J/\psi$ and $\Upsilon$ particles.