TENSIONLESS STRINGS: PHYSICAL FOCK SPACE AND HIGHER SPIN FIELDS

Abstract

We study the physical Fock space of the tensionless string theory with perimeter action, exploring its new gauge symmetry algebra. The cancellation of conformal anomaly requires the space–time to be 13-dimensional. All particles are massless and there are no tachyon states in the spectrum. The zero mode conformal operator defines the levels of the physical Fock space. All levels can be classified by the highest Casimir operator W of the little group E(11) for massless particles in 11-dimensions. The ground state is infinitely degenerated and contains massless gauge fields of arbitrary large integer spin, realizing the irreducible representations of E(11) of fixed helicity. The excitation levels realize CSR representations of little group E(11) with an infinite number of helicities. After inspection of the first excitation level, which, as we prove, is a physical null state, we conjecture that all excitation levels are physical null states. In this theory the tensor field of the second rank does not play any distinctive role and therefore one can suggest that in this model there is no gravity.