2 v 1 2 6 M ar 2 00 3 Superstrings on NSNS PP - Waves and Their CFT Duals

We investigate the correspondence between superstring theory on pp-wave background with NSNS-flux and superconformal field theory on a symmetric orbifold. This correspondence can be regarded as the “Penrose limit” of AdS3/CFT2 correspondence. Superstring theory on the Penrose limit of AdS3 ×S3(×M4) (M4 = T 4 orK3) with NSNS-flux can be described by a generalization of Nappi-Witten model. We quantize this system in the covariant gauge and obtain the spectrum of superstring theory. In the dual CFT point of view, the Penrose limit means concentrating on the subsector of almost BPS states with large R-charges. We show that stringy states can be embedded in the single-particle Hilbert space of symmetric orbifold theory.