THE ZERO TENSION LIMIT OF THE SPINNING STRING

We construct the limit T --> 0 of the spinning string starting from a reformulation of the same limit for the bosonic string. The action closely resembles that of the spinning particle and just as in that case we can extend our action to N supersymmetries and gauge the associated global O(N) symmetry. We also present a superspace formulation of the N = 1 theory and a general discussion of how to introduce spinors in geometries with degenerate metrics.