 Massless chiral RNS spectrum after GSO projection

In one critical chiral RNS string sector, light-cone gauge in string theory leaves eight transverse directions. The Neveu–Schwarz sector massless states $b_{-1/2}^i|0;k⟩$ give eight spacetime bosonic polarizations. The Ramond zero-mode Clifford algebra gives sixteen ground-state polarizations, split into two eight-dimensional spinor chiralities. The supersymmetric GSO projection keeps one chirality, giving eight spacetime fermionic polarizations. Without that projection the massless counts do not agree. Counting a chiral sector is distinct from tensoring left and right sectors into closed-string states.