Submitted: 1990
Authors:
C.R. Preitschopf, C.B. Thorn and S.A. Yost
Comments: 94 pgs
Journal-ref: Nucl. Phys. B337 (1990) 363
We construct a class of cubic gauge-invariant actions for superstring field theory, gauge fix one of them, and show that it reproduces the known superstring S-matrix. In our construction, boson string fields are taken in the 0 picture and fermion string fields in the -1/2 picture. For 0-picture the bosonic kinetic term requires an insertion carrying -2 units of picture number. We construct all possible picture-changing operators with the required properties. We use the simplest of these to construct the superstring action we choose to analyze here. In the gaugeb1 + b-1 = 0, the conformal mappings needed to evaluate the tree diagrams are algebraic, and this enables a completely explicit derivation of the Koba-Nielsen amplitudes. In this gauge the action formally linearizes, a phenomenon familiar from other Chern-Simons type theories. Nontrivial scattering amplitudes are obtained by approaching this gauge as a limit.