Open strings with topologically inspired boundary conditions

Abstract

We consider an open string described by an action of the Dirac-Nambu-Goto type with topological corrections which affect the boundary conditions but not the equations of motion. The most general addition of this kind is a sum of the Gauss-Bonnet action and the first Chern number (when the background spacetime dimension is four) of the normal bundle to the string worldsheet. We examine the modification introduced by such terms in the boundary conditions at the ends of the string.

12 pages, latex

References in corpus (6)

• Geometry of Deformations of Relativistic Membranes
• Extended objects with edges
• Boundary terms in Nambu-Goto string action
• Classical Open String Models in 4-Dim Minkowski Spacetime
• Nambu-Goto string with the Gauss-Bonnet term and point-like masses at the ends
• Nambu-Goto string action with Gauss-Bonnet term

Cited by in corpus (1)

• The Euler characteristic and the first Chern number in the covariant phase space formulation of string theory