Nambu-Goto Strings with a null symmetry and contact structure

Abstract: We study the classical dynamics of the Nambu-Goto strings with a null symmetry in curved spacetimes admitting a null Killing vector field. The Nambu-Goto equation is reduced to first order ordinary differential equations and is always integrable in contrast to the case of non-null symmetries where integrability requires additional spacetime symmetries. It is found that in the case of null symmetry, an almost contact structure associated with the metric dual 1-form $\eta$ of the null Killing vector field emerges naturally. This structure determines the allowed class of string worldsheets in such a way that the tangent vector fields of the worldsheet lie in $\ker \mathrm{d}\eta$. In the special case that the almost contact structure becomes a contact structure, its Reeb vector field completely characterizes the worldsheet. We apply our formulation to the strings in the pp-waves, the Einstein static universe and the G\"odel universe. We also study their worldsheet geometry in detail.