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Use the classically equivalent Polyakov action, fix worldsheet diffeomorphisms and Weyl invariance, and perform a Wick rotation of the string worldsheet. In complex coordinates, the worldsheet ghost action for the closed string isThe worldsheet ghost fields are anticommuting. Their conformal weights are $b:(2,0)$, $c:(-1,0)$ and $\bar{b}:(0,2)$, $\bar{c}:(0,-1)$. The two chiral sectors are counted separately.

In either chiral sector, each embedding coordinate is a free boson conformal field theory with central charge one. For the bc system, putting $J=2$ in $c_{bc}=-2(6J^2-6J+1)$ gives $c_{bc}=-26$. Cancellation of the worldsheet Weyl anomaly requiresThe antiholomorphic sector gives the same equation, rather than doubling the required critical dimension of string theory. This dimension count assumes flat target spacetime with just the embedding fields; more general internal conformal field theories change the matter accounting.

For the spinning string, the worldsheet Majorana fermions have conformal weight $1/2$. At $J=1/2$, the complex anticommuting bc system has $c=1$; a real Majorana spinor contributes half of this. Hence $D$ real worldsheet Majorana fermions contribute $D/2$ per chiral sector. Ramond sector versus Neveu–Schwarz sector changes their mode numbers and vacuum energies, not this local central charge.

The additional local worldsheet supersymmetry has a fermionic gauge parameter, so its superconformal ghosts are commuting fields forming a beta-gamma system, with conformal weights $\beta :3/2$ and $\gamma :-1/2$ in the holomorphic sector. Commuting statistics reverse the sign of the bc system formula, givingTogether with the reparameterization worldsheet ghost fields, their total central charge is $-26+11=-15$. ThusThese cancellations make the string worldsheet gauge symmetries compatible with quantization; in the BRST symmetry formulation they enter the nilpotence condition for the BRST operator.

The first term of the action is the free boson conformal field theory. For the curvature coupling, insert the supplied first variation of $\sqrt{g}{R}^{(2)}$, integrate by parts twice and discard the boundary term. Its metric variation is the stress-tensor improvementin the conventions of the question. In a locally flat complex coordinate, the holomorphic component of the complete stress-energy tensor is thereforeas required. Thus the coupling $q\int \sqrt{g}X{R}^{(2)}$ makes $X$ a background-charge scalar field, equivalently a worldsheet coordinate in a linear dilaton conformal field theory.