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A first-class constraint has Poisson brackets with all constraints that vanish on the constraint surface. For a regular constrained Hamiltonian system, first-class constraints generate gauge transformations; each independent constraint and its gauge direction remove one canonical pair.

Use the Minkowski metric ${\eta }_{mn}=\mathrm{diag}(-1,1,\dots ,1)$ and units with speed of light one. The contractions are $P^2={\eta }^{mn}{P}_m{P}_n$ and $(T{X}^{\prime }{)}^2=T^2{\eta }_{mn}(X^m{)}^{\prime }(X^n{)}^{\prime }$; $(X^m{)}^{\prime }{P}_m$ and ${\dot{X}}^m{P}_m$ pair a vector with a covector without another metric. The Lagrange multipliers impose the two first-class constraintsThey generate worldsheet diffeomorphisms, so the phase space contains both constrained directions and gauge redundancy. Two first-class constraints remove two canonical pairs, leaving $D-2$ physical degrees of freedom per point.

In Monge gauge, $X^0=t$ and $X^1=\sigma$. Write the transverse canonical variables as $\mathbf{X}=(X^2,\dots ,X^{D-1})$ and $\mathbf{P}=(P_2,\dots ,P_{D-1})$. Solving the first-class constraints givesThe negative root selects positive energy. Substitution into the phase-space action gives the Hamiltonian reductionFor a static segment, $\mathbf{P}=0$, its proper length element is $d\ell =\sqrt{1+|{\mathbf{X}}^{\prime }{|}^2}d\sigma$, and $\mathcal{E}d\sigma =Td\ell$. Thus the string tension is the rest energy per unit proper length. In particular a straight resting segment has $\mathcal{E}=T$. Monge gauge is a local choice on a string embedding map for which $X^1$ is a valid coordinate; it need not cover folded strings or all endpoint configurations.