title: String theory of the Regge intercept.
abstract: Using the Polchinski-Strominger effective string theory in the covariant gauge, we compute the mass of a rotating string in D dimensions with large angular momenta J, in one or two planes, in fixed ratio, up to and including first subleading order in the large J expansion. This constitutes a first-principles calculation of the value for the order-J(0) contribution to the mass squared of a meson on the leading Regge trajectory in planar QCD with bosonic quarks. For open strings with Neumann boundary conditions, and for closed strings in D≥5, the order-J(0) term in the mass squared is exactly calculated by the semiclassical approximation. This term in the expansion is universal and independent of the details of the theory, assuming only D-dimensional Poincaré invariance and the absence of other infinite-range excitations on the string world volume, beyond the Nambu-Goldstone bosons.
authors.affiliation: Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8582, Japan.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hellerman
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Swanson