Origin of the pure spinor and Green-Schwarz formalisms

Abstract

The pure spinor formalism for the superstring was recently obtained by gauge-fixing a purely bosonic classical action involving a twistor-like constraint ∂x^m(γ<inf>m</inf>λ)<inf>α</inf> = 0 where λ^α is a d=10 pure spinor. This twistor-like constraint replaces the usual Virasoro constraint ∂x^m∂x<inf>m</inf> = 0, and the Green-Schwarz fermionic spacetime spinor variables θ^α arise as Faddeev-Popov ghosts for this constraint. In this paper, the purely bosonic classical action is simplified by replacing the classical d=10 pure spinor λ^α with a d=10 projective pure spinor. The pure spinor and Green-Schwarz formalisms for the superparticle and superstring are then obtained as different gauge-fixings of this purely bosonic classical action, and the Green-Schwarz kappa symmetry is directly related to the pure spinor BRST symmetry. Since a d=10 projective pure spinor parameterizes (Formula presented.), this action can be interpreted as a standard ĉ = 5 topological action where one integrates over the (Formula presented.) choice of complex structure. Finally, a purely bosonic action for the d=11 supermembrane is proposed which reduces upon double-dimensional reduction to the purely bosonic action for the d=10 Type IIA superstring.