Symmetries and String Field Theory in D=2

Abstract

(This talk was presented at the Third International Wigner Symposium on Group Theory, Oxford, September, 1993.) Matrix models provides us with the most powerful framework in which to analyze D=2 string theory, yet some of its miraculous features, such as discrete states and $w(\infty)$, remain rather obscure, because the string degrees of freedom have been removed. Liouville theory, on the other hand, has all its string degrees of freedom intact, yet is notoriously difficult to solve. In this paper, we present the second quantized formulation of Liouville theory in D=2, where discrete states and $w(\infty)$ have a natural, field theoretic interpretation. We generalize the non-polynomial closed string field theory, first developed by the author and the Kyoto and MIT groups, to the D=2 case. We find that, in second quantized field theory language, the rather mysterious features of matrix models have an intuitively transparent interpretation, similar to standard gauge theory. Latex file.