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Are strings (in string theory) able to rotate?

Physics Asked on July 14, 2021

I read in this Wikipedia article:

In the late 1960s, experimentalists had found that hadrons fall into families called Regge trajectories with squared energy proportional to angular momentum, and theorists showed that this relationship emerges naturally from the physics of a rotating relativistic string.

This confuses me. What makes a rotating string distinguishable from a non-rotating one?

The string has no structure, so how can it rotate? I can imagine the string vibrating. But rotating…?

Who has something useful to say on this issue?

One Answer

A classical string can of course rotate when its endpoints (if it is open) or the loop that it forms (if it is closed) rotate. This is just ordinary geometry.

However, the "spinning string" here likely refers not to this extrinsic notion of rotation of a classical string but to the idea of the superstring, whose worldsheet fermions give it a notion of intrinsic spin similar to how worldline fermions give a particle a notion of intrinsic spin in a worldline formulation. The Neveu-Schwarz-Ramond superstring was indeed originally conceived to explain Regge trajectories.

Correct answer by ACuriousMind on July 14, 2021

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