Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2023 / iii / Paper 306 / 1 / a / Solution

The Euler-Lagrange equation of each component of the string embedding map is the wave equation $({\partial }_{\tau }^2-{\partial }_{\sigma }^2)X^{\mu }=0$. Its left- and right-moving solutions are identified by the endpoint Neumann boundary conditions, so the resulting open-string mode expansion isIndeed, the Fourier cosine series makes ${\partial }_{\sigma }{X}^{\mu }$ vanish at $\sigma =0,\pi$. The canonical momentum density is ${\Pi }_{\mu }=(2\pi {\alpha }^{\prime }{)}^{-1}{\dot{X}}_{\mu }$. Imposing the equal-time canonical commutation relations $[X^{\mu }(\sigma ),{\Pi }_{\nu }({\sigma }^{\prime })]=i{\delta }_{\nu }^{\mu }\delta (\sigma -{\sigma }^{\prime })$ gives the covariant quantization of the bosonic stringwith ${\alpha }_0^{\mu }=\sqrt{2{\alpha }^{\prime }}{p}^{\mu }$.