Open strings on the Rindler horizon

Abstract

Abstract It has been proposed that a certain ℤ N orbifold, analytically continued in N, can be used to describe the thermodynamics of Rindler space in string theory. In this paper, we attempt to implement this idea for the open-string sector. The most interesting result is that, although the orbifold is tachyonic for positive integer N, the tachyon seems to disappear after analytic continuation to the region that is appropriate for computing Tr $$ {\rho}^{\mathcal{N}} $$ ρ N , where ρ is the density matrix of Rindler space and Re $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N > 1. Analytic continuation of the full orbifold conformal field theory remains a challenge, but we find some evidence that if such analytic continuation is possible, the resulting theory is a logarithmic conformal field theory, necessarily nonunitary.