A New Description of the Superstring

الأصل · EN

This is a review of the new manifestly spacetime-supersymmetric description of the superstring. The new description contains N=2 worldsheet supersymmetry, and is related by a field redefinition to the standard RNS description. It is especially convenient for four-dimensional compactifications since SO(3,1) super-Poincaré invariance can be made manifest. Parts of this work have been done in collaboration with Warren Siegel and Cumrun Vafa. This review is based on lectures given at the VIII J.A. Swieca summer school and should be easily accesible to anyone familiar with the RNS superstring description.