Cardy states, factorization and idempotency in closed string field theory Original Research Article

We show that boundary states in the generic on-shell background satisfy a universal nonlinear equation of closed string field theory. It generalizes our previous claim for the flat background. The origin of the equation is factorization relation of boundary conformal field theory which is always true as an axiom. The equation necessarily incorporates the information of open string sector through a regularization, which implies the equivalence with Cardy condition. We also give a more direct proof by oscillator representations for some nontrivial backgrounds (torus and orbifolds). Finally we discuss some properties of the closed string star product for nonvanishing B field and find that a commutative and nonassociative product (Strachan product) appears naturally in Seiberg–Witten limit.