Consider the closed bosonic string on a rectangular product of spatial circles with no background mixing between them. Let have period , take , and choose to be the tilded oscillator sector. Closed-string topology permits
Single-valued center-of-mass wavefunctions give quantized momentum , . These are the momentum and winding modes. The oscillator modes remain integer moded; the zero modes are split as
The two intercept-one Virasoro constraints, with noncompact , give
Thus the mass formula and compact-circle closed-string level matching condition are
Here labels right movers and left movers; exchanging the labels changes the displayed sign convention, not the spectrum. Noncompact oscillator polarizations are still restricted by positive-mode Virasoro conditions and null-state identifications. T-duality exchanges and , preserving masses and the physical state conditions.
At generic radius, neutral states with one noncompact oscillator and one compact oscillator give two massless vectors per circle. They are the two Abelian gauge fields associated with the compact metric and two-form components. Additional charged vectors can occur at oscillator level sum one. For one circle, set all other compact charges to zero. Take and , with a right-moving noncompact oscillator ; or take and , with a left-moving noncompact oscillator . These obey level matching. Their common squared mass is
Therefore four extra charged vector particles become massless at , the self-dual circle. Away from that radius they are massive. They are genuine vector states: the noncompact level-one oscillator carries a vector polarization, and the Virasoro constraint plus its null identification impose transversality and remove the gauge polarization at zero mass.
The resulting self-dual circle current algebra makes the gauge enhancement explicit. At the special radius, the left-moving charges above have , . With , the currents
have conformal weight one. The operator products give , and . They form a level-one SU(2) current algebra; the right-moving copy supplies another SU(2). Pairing each chiral current with the opposite-sector noncompact derivative yields a weight- vector vertex. Thus the generic becomes , with four charged generators in addition to the two Cartan vectors. Several self-dual circles give the corresponding product enhancement.
Compactification also creates scalar states and moduli; not every additional massless state is a vector. The mechanism just shown uses the intercept-one bosonic spectrum. A superstring projection changes the allowed oscillator states, so the same mass formula cannot simply be applied to a GSO-projected superstring without modification.
Let be the compact coordinate, identified modulo . The closed string may wrap the circle:
Single-valued momentum eigenfunctions require , . These are the momentum and winding modes. Write the chiral zero-mode momenta as
The left-moving string oscillators will be tilded: , . This fixes the sign in compact-circle closed-string level matching.
Define the lower-dimensional mass by . The two closed-string physical-state Virasoro conditions, with bosonic string intercept one, are
Their average and difference derive the complete free bosonic string mass spectrum on the circle:
The allowed states have nonnegative integer oscillator levels and obey the Virasoro constraints within each chiral sector. Compactification has not removed oscillator polarizations; it has added quantized compact momentum and allowed winding while changing the lower-dimensional interpretation of those polarizations.
At large , the momentum and winding modes with have closely spaced momentum energies , whereas nonzero winding costs . At small their roles reverse. The precise equality is T-duality:
It leaves unchanged and reverses , and leaves the mass formula and closed-string level matching unchanged. On the string embedding map it reverses the right-moving part of . Therefore the small-radius spectrum is the large-radius spectrum of the dual theory, rather than a spectrum in which all charged states simply become heavy.
At a generic radius, the neutral level contains the lower-dimensional graviton, Kalb–Ramond field and dilaton, two gauge bosons from the mixed components of the metric and two-form, and the radius modulus of a string compactification. The two vector charges are the Cartan charges of .
Consider instead the following charged states:
Every state satisfies compact-circle closed-string level matching. The single noncompact string oscillator supplies a vector polarization. At the massless point, the level-one Virasoro constraint imposes transverse polarization and its physical null string state identifies polarizations differing by the noncompact momentum. Thus these are genuine lower-dimensional vector states. Their squared mass is
Thus four additional charged massless spin-one particles appear at
For the charges have , ; for they have , . This identifies the two pairs of charged roots.
The enhanced gauge group can be derived rather than just inferred from counting. At the self-dual circle, the chiral compact boson satisfies . The self-dual circle current algebra has currents
The exponentials have conformal weight . Free-boson contractions give the operator product expansions
They form the level-one SU(2) Lie algebra, and there is an independent right-moving copy. The string vertex operators and give the six massless vectors. Consequently
Changing gives the four charged vectors the mass found above, consistent with the radius deformation as a Higgs mechanism.
For completeness, the enhanced spectrum also has scalar fields. Using a compact rather than noncompact oscillator in the four singly excited charged families gives four scalars. At , closed-string level matching requires ; the mass equation then gives the four charges . These exceptional massless ground states of a bosonic circle give another four scalars. Together with the radius scalar they form nine scalars in the representation, in addition to the neutral dilaton. The ever-present neutral bosonic tachyon still has . The enhancement establishes the additional massless vectors, not stability of the entire bosonic vacuum.
Use target signature and a closed-string spatial coordinate . Write for the compact coordinate and for the noncompact coordinates. In conformal gauge, the wave equation factorizes, so every coordinate is a sum of a function of and a function of . The closed-string boundary conditions are
Thus the derivatives of each chiral part are periodic and have integer Fourier modes; only their worldsheet zero modes can produce the winding displacement. Integrating these Fourier series gives the closed-string mode expansion
The oscillator reality conditions are and similarly for the tilded modes. The coefficient of follows by integrating the canonical momentum density . Single-valued wavefunctions of the center coordinate have momentum , with . Equivalently, the compact chiral worldsheet zero modes are and , where
Here tildes denote the left-moving sector. This convention will also fix the sign in compact-circle closed-string level matching.
Choose a noncompact light-cone pair and impose light-cone gauge in string theory , with . The Virasoro constraints then solve for in terms of the transverse coordinates. For example, with , one has . Thus there are two independent transverse oscillator Fock spaces, including among the transverse coordinates. Quantization gives , and the same relation for the tilded oscillators, with the two sectors commuting. Lorentz consistency gives the critical dimension of the bosonic string and string intercept one in each sector. Accordingly
count 24 transverse oscillator species. The two zero-mode constraints give the lower-dimensional bosonic string mass spectrum
Taking their difference and average yields
Every choice of transverse string oscillators and integer charges satisfying this closed-string level matching is a physical string state in light-cone gauge. The eliminated longitudinal oscillators do not supply additional polarizations.
To classify all massless states, positivity of the two compact terms implies . When the sum is two, masslessness forces , and closed-string level matching then forces . The states have polarizations. In 25 noncompact dimensions, their decomposition gives a graviton, a Kalb–Ramond field, a dilaton, two Abelian gauge vectors from the metric and two-form with one compact index, and the radius scalar field. Their physical polarization counts are
The first two numbers are the symmetric traceless second-rank tensor and antisymmetric second-rank tensor of the massless little group .
When , closed-string level matching requires . The compact contribution obeys
and equality occurs precisely at . The charges have ; the charges have . Each charge has 24 polarizations supplied by its single excited sector. At a general radius these have
Finally, requires . The exceptional massless ground states of a bosonic circle occur at
Each charge is a scalar field. These special radii must be included if “general radius” is to mean a complete classification, rather than only a generic radius. At a generic radius the massless spectrum is the neutral 576-state spectrum above; at exceptional radii one adds exactly the states just listed. The neutral ground state remains tachyonic.
The map
sends to and to . Reversing all right-moving compact string oscillators, , preserves their commutators and oscillator number; the left-moving oscillators are unchanged. Both the mass formula and compact-circle closed-string level matching are therefore unchanged, with a one-to-one map of the complete oscillator basis. This proves T-duality of the full spectrum, including winding, massive and tachyonic states.
At the self-dual circle the four single-oscillator charge families give new massless states. Each family decomposes into a 25-dimensional gauge vector with 23 polarizations and one scalar field. There are also four massless ground states, with charges and . Thus the massless spectrum at the bosonic self-dual circle has
The gauge interpretation follows directly from the chiral compact-boson operators. With , the exponential has conformal weight . At the self-dual radius,
have weight one and satisfy , , and . These are the level-one current relations; the right sector supplies another copy. Multiplying these currents by a noncompact oscillator produces six gauge vectors in total. The nine scalar string vertex operators form the representation, accounting for the radius scalar field and eight new scalar fields. The remaining neutral fields are the graviton, two-form and dilaton.
A radius deformation as a Higgs mechanism is the expectation value of the Cartan–Cartan scalar string vertex operator . Its stabilizer is , so
The four compact single-oscillator scalar field polarizations become longitudinal polarizations of the four massive vectors, exactly as in the Higgs mechanism. The other four extra scalar fields have masses or and need not remain massless; one pair becomes tachyonic on either side of the self-dual point. Together with the original bosonic tachyon, this means that the gauge-symmetry interpretation is formal and does not assert a stable bosonic-string vacuum.
Use the mostly-positive target Minkowski spacetime metric and a closed string coordinate . In conformal gauge, variation of the Polyakov action gives . The compact coordinate, denoted , can change by around the closed string, with . Write . Integrating the two chiral wave solutions and expanding their periodic parts gives the closed-string mode expansion
Reality imposes and the analogous condition in the other chirality. The classical compact momentum is continuous; quantization of a wavefunction on the circle subsequently gives with . The momentum and winding modes are most conveniently packaged as
For noncompact directions both zero modes are . Thus the formula includes both independent string oscillator families and all compact topological sectors.
Define the worldsheet stress-energy tensor by . Its normalization and components are
An overall rescaling of the named worldsheet stress tensor does not alter its vanishing. Variation of the independent worldsheet metric imposes , equivalently . These are the Virasoro constraints that restrict the otherwise general wave solution.
The conjugate momentum density is . The gauge-fixed Hamiltonian generating translation is therefore
with the analogous tilded generators. In particular, before imposing the Virasoro constraints,
The target momentum includes its timelike component, so this is not a positive particle-energy formula. On the classical constraint surface the reparameterization Hamiltonian vanishes; target energy is the separate charge . The difference imposes the residual spatial constraint.
In the quantum theory the same quadratic expressions require normal ordering: makes different orderings differ by divergent constants. Their regularized finite remainder is the normal-ordering constant of a string, or string intercept. The Virasoro central extension also appears. In the critical 26-dimensional bosonic string theory, the 24 transverse string oscillators give one-unit string intercept in each chirality. For example their regulated chiral vacuum energy is using zeta function regularization. The physical zero-mode constraints are .
Let be the mass seen in the remaining 25 noncompact dimensions. Substituting the compact zero modes in these two constraints gives
Taking their mean and difference yields
This sign of compact-circle closed-string level matching follows from assigning tildes to the left-moving sector. Under T-duality, set , , . Then and , so reversing the compact right-moving string oscillators implements the transformation while leaving unchanged. Both the mass equation and closed-string level matching are invariant. This proves invariance of the full closed string spectrum, including its string oscillator degeneracies, rather than only the zero-mode contribution.
A D-brane with spatial worldvolume directions, called a D-brane, is a -dimensional timelike submanifold on which open string endpoints have Neumann boundary conditions tangentially and Dirichlet boundary conditions transversely. Apply T-duality to the compact coordinate by . The differential relations
interchange the two endpoint conditions. Consequently a D-brane wrapping the original circle becomes a D-brane localized on the dual circle. Its compact Wilson line specifies that position. This is T-duality of D-brane boundary conditions.
The separated-brane configuration must instead have the circle transverse to the D-branes. Two parallel D-branes wrapping the same circle cannot be separated along that worldvolume direction. Thus the latter part describes a new orientation, with both endpoints subject to compact Dirichlet boundary conditions. If their positions differ by , an oriented Open string stretched between D-branes has displacement
On , its compact classical solution has a linear part , plus sine modes vanishing at the endpoints. This adds to the Virasoro generator zero mode. Thus, for momentum along the D-branes,
The second equation is the quantum rest-energy squared of the string oscillator ground state; the smallest one uses the shortest allowed compact separation . Classically the straight string energy is . The quantum ground state is a tachyon if , so in that regime it is an instability rather than a state with real rest energy. Dropping the string intercept would describe the classical stretched string, not its quantum ground state.
The transverse-circle T-duality changes these two D-branes to D-branes wrapping the dual circle. Their positions become the eigenvalues of a constant gauge connection. The Wilson loop phases are . A string connecting D-brane to D-brane has dual compact momentum
Its momentum contribution to is exactly the former stretching term, including every winding sector. Qualitatively the two geometrically coincident wrapped D-branes are distinguished by their Wilson lines, and their connecting strings have shifted momentum quantization. This is how brane separation becomes a Wilson line.
Use target-space signature and conformal gauge . Dots and primes denote differentiation with respect to and . Varying the Polyakov action with respect to the string embedding map gives the wave equation; varying the worldsheet metric sets the worldsheet stress tensor to zero. Explicitly,
With and , the two Virasoro constraints are .
A fixed spatial circle would sweep out a cylindrical string worldsheet. In static coordinates its string embedding map is and its induced worldsheet metric is . The radial part of the Nambu–Goto equations of motion is proportional to , which is nonzero. Thus a nonzero-radius cylinder cannot solve the equations. Motion of labels around this same cylinder is a worldsheet diffeomorphism and cannot alter this conclusion.
The familiar pulsating circular string makes the obstruction particularly explicit. Put and . The wave equation and Virasoro constraints reduce to
A constant violates the first equation. Even rotating the labels, , cannot help: the wave equation requires , whereas requires .
Nor does a rigid rotation of the circular plane rescue the usual circular ansatz in three spatial dimensions. Write its spatial part as , with and . The wave equation gives and . The constant norms give and . The mixed Virasoro constraint, together with the derivative of , gives . Differentiating twice gives . This would require four mutually orthogonal nonzero spatial vectors in . This obstruction is specific to the stated spatial dimension; a rigid circular string in four spatial dimensions has more room.
To express the Virasoro constraints in modes, extend the string oscillators by
Differentiating the two chiral expansions gives and the corresponding expression with tildes for . Equating every Fourier coefficient of their squares to zero yields
Reality of the string embedding map means and . In particular, define the classical string level operators by and . The zero-mode Virasoro constraints become
Consequently the classical bosonic string mass spectrum is
The equality of the two levels is closed-string level matching. There is no string intercept here: that shift comes from quantum normal ordering, not from these classical equations.
For the compact boson, closed-string periodicity permits a winding number , so . Let be the momentum in this direction. Its zero-mode expansion and the corresponding chiral momenta are
Thus replace the equal left and right zero modes by and ; the nonzero string oscillators remain integer-moded. Classically is continuous. Quantizing the compact boson makes momentum wavefunctions single-valued around its circle, giving with .
If , , is the noncompact momentum and , the two zero-mode Virasoro constraints give
Averaging and subtracting gives the momentum and winding modes and compact-circle closed-string level matching formulas
The latter becomes on imposing quantum momentum quantization. The sign follows from assigning tildes to the left mover .
An explicit winding-supported circular string, valid classically for every , is
The noncompact projection is a circle of constant radius. Every coordinate obeys the wave equation. Its compact winding is , and a direct calculation gives
Thus both Virasoro constraints hold and the induced worldsheet metric is , not a degenerate cylinder. The compact motion cancels the mixed stress that spoiled rotation of labels in flat space. Here , and satisfy the classical compact-circle closed-string level matching condition. Requiring this particular classical momentum to equal an individual quantum eigenvalue would impose an additional radius-dependent condition; that is not required to construct the classical solution.