On the polarization of closed strings by Ramond-Ramond fluxes

Abstract

In the Green-Schwarz formalism, the closed string worldsheet of the IIB theory couples to Ramond-Ramond (RR) fluxes through spinor bilinears. We study the effect of such fluxes by analyzing the supersymmetry transformation of the worldsheet in general backgrounds. We show that, in the presence RR fields, the closed string can get `polarized', as the spinors acquire non-zero vevs in directions correlating with the orientation of close-by D-branes. Reversing the argument, this may allow for worldsheet configurations - with non-trivial spinor structure - that source RR moments.