Classical and Quantum Strings in plane waves, shock waves and spacetime singularities: synthesis and new results

Abstract

Key issues of classical and quantum strings in gravitational plane waves, shock waves and spacetime singularities are synthetically understood. This includes the string mass and mode number excitations, energy-momentum tensor, scattering amplitudes, vaccum polarization and wave-string polarization effect. The role of the real pole singularities characteristic of the tree level string spectrum (real mass resonances) and that of spacetime singularities is clearly exhibited. This throws light on the issue of singularities in string theory which can be thus classified and fully physically characterized in two different sets: strong singularities (poles of order equal or larger than 2, and black holes), where the string motion is collective and non oscillating in time, outgoing and scattering states do not appear, the string does not cross the singularities, and weak singularities (poles of order smaller than 2, Dirac delta, and conic/orbifold singularities) where the whole string motion is oscillatory in time, outgoing and scattering states exist, and the string crosses the singularities. Commom features of strings in singular plane backgrounds and in inflationary backgrounds are explicitly exhibited. The string dynamics and the scattering/excitation through the singularities (whatever their kind: strong or weak) is fully physically consistent and meaningful.