Hidden Symmetries of Two-Dimensional String Effective Action

Abstract

The ten-dimensional heterotic string effective action with graviton, dilaton, and antisymmetric tensor fields is dimensionally reduced to two spacetime dimensions. The resulting theory, with some constraints on backgrounds, admits infinite sequence of conserved nonlocal currents. It is shown that generators of the infinitesimal transformations associated with these currents satisfy the Kac-Moody algebra.