An Action For Chan-Paton Factors

(eng) We show that Chan-Paton factors can be derived from a classical action describing the dynamics of a new group-valued degree of freedom attached to the boundary of an open bosonic string. We discuss the free and the interacting string in the oriented and unoriented cases, as well as the coupling of the string to an external Yang-Mills gauge field, and recover by this approach well-known results. Comment: 1+9 pages, no figures