The stress–energy tensor is traceless

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Throughout, $\sigma=(\sigma^0,\sigma^1)\in\mathbb R^2$ is a worldsheet point (index $0$ is $\tau$, index $1$ is $\sigma$), $X:\mathbb R^2\to\mathbb R^D$ is the embedding, $\partial_a X^\mu(\sigma)$ is the $\mu$-th component of the Fréchet derivative of $X$ at $\sigma$ applied to the $a$-th standard basis vector (it is $0$ wherever $X$ is not differentiable), $G_{ab}(\sigma)=\sum_{\mu,\nu} g_{\mu\nu}(X(\sigma))\,\partial_aX^\mu\,\partial_bX^\nu$ is the induced metric, $h^{ab}$ denotes the entries of the matrix inverse $(h_{ab})^{-1}$ (Mathlib's inverse, which is the zero matrix when $\det h=0$), and $\sqrt{\cdot}$ is the real square root, which returns $0$ on negative inputs. The Polyakov density is $\mathcal L_P=\sqrt{-\det h}\,\sum_{a,b}h^{ab}G_{ab}$, the Polyakov action on a set $U$ is $S_P[U]=\frac T2\int_U\mathcal L_P\,d^2\sigma$ (Lebesgue measure; Bochner integral, equal to $0$ if the integrand is not integrable on $U$), and the Nambu–Goto action is $S_{NG}[U]=T\int_U\sqrt{-\det G}\,d^2\sigma$. The stress–energy tensor is $T_{ab}=T\big(G_{ab}-\tfrac12 h_{ab}\sum_{c,d}h^{cd}G_{cd}\big)$, and $\eta^{(n)}=\mathrm{diag}(1,-1,\dots,-1)$ is the $n\times n$ Minkowski matrix.

Statement. For every $D$, real $T$, target metric $g$, worldsheet metric $h$, map $X$ and point $\sigma\in\mathbb R^2$ such that $h(\sigma)^{\mathsf T}=h(\sigma)$ and $\det h(\sigma)\neq0$:

No condition on $X$ or $g$ is imposed.