JOINING-SPLITTING INTERACTION OF NONCRITICAL STRING

Abstract

The joining-splitting interaction of noncritical bosonic string is analyzed in the light-cone formulation. The Mandelstam method of constructing tree string amplitudes is extended to the bosonic massive string models of the discrete series. The general properties of the Liouville longitudinal excitations which are necessary and sufficient for the Lorentz covariance of the light-cone amplitudes are derived. The results suggest that the covariant and the light-cone approach are equivalent also in the noncritical dimensions. Some aspects of unitarity of interacting noncritical massive string theory are discussed.