String theories with deformed energy-momentum relations, and a possible nontachyonic bosonic string

We consider a prescription for introducing deformed dispersion relations in the bosonic string action. We find that in a subset of such theories it remains true that the embedding coordinates propagate linearly on the world sheet. While both the string modes and the center of mass propagate with deformed dispersion relations, the speed of light remains energy independent. We consider the canonical quantization of these strings and find that it is possible to choose theories so that ghost modes still decouple, as usual. We also find that there are examples where the tachyon is eliminated from the spectrum of the free bosonic string.