We study a brane/anti-brane configuration which is separated along a compact direction by constructing a tachyon effective action which takes into account transverse scalars. Such an action is relevant in the study of HQCD model of Sakai and Sugimoto of chiral symmetry breaking, where the size of the compact circle sets the confinement scale. Our approach is motivated by string theory orbifold constructions and gives a route to model inhomogeneous tachyon decay. We illustrate the techniques involved with a relatively simple example of a harmonic oscillator on a circle. We will then repeat the analysis for the Sakai-Sugimoto model and show that by integrating out the winding modes will provide us with a renormalized action with a lower energy than that of truncating to zero winding sector.
We study the boundary state associated with the decay of an unstable D-brane with uniform electric field, 1>e>0 in the string units. Compactifying the D-brane along the direction of the electric field, we find that the decay process is dominated by production of closed strings with some winding numbers; closed strings produced are such that the winding mode carries precisely the fraction $e$ of the individual string energy. This supports the conjecture that the final state at tree level is composed of winding strings with heavy oscillations turned on. As a corollary, we argue that the closed s…
In a toy model with gases of membranes and strings wrapping over a two-dimensional internal torus, we study the stabilization problem for the shape modulus. It is observed that winding modes of partially wrapped strings and momentum modes give rise to stress in the energy momentum tensor. We show that this stress dynamically stabilizes the shape modulus of the two torus.
Closed string field theory is constructed by stochastically quantizing a matrix model for Polyakov loops that describes phases of a large N gauge theory at finite temperature. Coherent states in this string field theory describes winding string condensation which has been expected to cause a topology change from thermal AdS geometry to AdS-Schwarzschild black hole geometry. D-branes in this closed string field theory is also discussed. Slightly extended version of a talk given at CosPA 2007, Nov.13-15, Taipei, Taiwan.
We show that thermal noncommutative field theories admit a version of `channel duality' reminiscent of open/closed string duality, where non-planar thermal loops can be replaced by an infinite tower of tree-level exchanges of effective fields. These effective fields resemble closed strings in three aspects: their mass spectrum is that of closed-string winding modes, their interaction vertices contain extra moduli, and they can be regarded as propagating in a higher-dimensional `bulk' space-time. In noncommutative models that can be embedded in a D-brane, we show the precise relation between th…
It is well known that one-loop free energy of closed strings diverges above the Hagedorn temperature. One explanation for this divergence is that a `winding mode' in the Euclidean time direction becomes tachyonic above the Hagedorn temperature. The Hagedorn transition of closed strings has been proposed as a phase transition via condensation of this winding tachyon. However, we have not known the stable minimum of the potential of this winding tachyon so far. On the other hand, we have previously calculated the finite temperature effective potential of open strings on D-brane--anti-D-brane pai…
We show that, in the context of dilaton gravity, a recently proposed democratic principle for intersection possibilities of branes winding around extra dimensions yield stabilization, even with the inclusion of momentum modes of the wrapped branes on top of the winding modes. The constraints for stabilization massaged by string theory inputs forces the number of observed dimensions to be three. We also discuss consequences of adding ordinary matter living in the observed dimensions.
A D5 brane winding around a stack of D3 branes can be used as a model of persistent current in a thin superconducting ring, with the number N of D3s corresponding to the number of transverse channels in the ring. We consider, in the large N limit, existence and properties of a gapped superconducting state with a uniform winding number density q. We find that there is a gapped classical solution for any q, no matter how large, but when q is larger than a certain q_m the state is unstable with respect to decay by phase slips. We argue that this decay produces strings via a version of the Hanany-…
We investigate toy cosmological models in (1+m+p)-dimensions with gas of p-branes wrapping over p-compact dimensions. In addition to winding modes, we consider the effects of momentum modes corresponding to small vibrations of branes and find that the extra dimensions are dynamically stabilized while the others expand. Adding matter, the compact volume may grow slowly depending on the equation of state. We also obtain solutions with winding and momentum modes where the observed space undergoes accelerated expansion.
We show that, in the context of pure Einstein gravity, a democratic principle for intersection possibilities of branes winding around extra dimensions in a given partitioning yield stabilization, while what the observed space follows is matter-like dust evolution . Here democracy is used in the sense that, in a given decimation of extra dimensions, all possible wrappings and hence all possible intersections are allowed. Generally, the necessary and sufficient condition for this is that the dimensionality $m$ of the observed space dimensions obey $3\leqm \le N$ where $N$ is the decimation order…
We consider evolution of compact extra dimensions in cosmology and try to see whether wrapped branes can prevent the expansion of the internal space. Some difficulties of Brandenberger and Vafa mechanism for decompactification are pointed out. In both pure Einstein and dilaton gravities, we study cosmology of winding brane gases in a continuum approximation. The energy momentum tensor is obtained by coupling the brane action to the gravity action and we present several exact solutions for various brane configurations. T-duality invariance of the solutions are established in dilaton gravity. Ou…
We consider Dirichlet p-branes in type II string theory on a space which has been toroidally compactified in d dimensions. We give an explicit construction of the field theory description of this system by putting a countably infinite number of copies of each brane on the noncompact covering space, and modding out the resulting gauge theory by Z^d. The resulting theory is a gauge theory with graded fields corresponding to strings winding around the torus an arbitrary number of times. In accordance with T-duality, this theory is equivalent to the gauge theory for the dual system of (d + p)-bran…
We construct the basic Neveu-Schwarz (NS) brane solutions of non-relativistic string theory using longitudinal T-duality as a solution generating technique. Extending the NS background fields to a supergravity multiplet, we verify that all solutions we find are half-supersymmetric. The two perturbative solutions we find both have an interpretation as the background geometry outside a string-like object. Correspondingly, we refer to these non-Lorentzian backgrounds as winding string and unwound string solution. Whereas the winding string is part of the on-shell spectrum of non-relativistic stri…
In this work an algorithm is proposed to calculate entropy for field theories living on NS five branes, which gives a result invariant under T-duality. This is a deformation of the well known Ryu-Takayanagi formula, which takes into account dependence of localized backgrounds for the branes on winding modes of strings.
We study n-string scattering amplitudes in three-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space (AdS3). We focus our attention on the processes in which the winding number conservation is violated maximally; that is, those processes in which it is violated in n-2 units. A worldsheet conformal field theory calculation leads us to confirm a previous conjecture about the functional form of these observables.
We derive the BPS mass formulae of the Dirichlet branes from the Born-Infeld type action. BPS saturation is realized when the brane has the minimal volume while keeping the appropriate winding numbers. We apply the idea to two cases, type IIA superstring compactified on $T^4$ and $K3$. The result is consistent with the string duality, and the expected spectrum for the BPS states is reproduced.
Recently, the monopole-antimonopole pair and monopole-antimonopole chain solutions are solved with internal space coordinate system of $θ$-winding number $m$ greater than one. However, we notice that it is also possible to solve these solutions numerically in terms of $θ$-winding number $m=1$ instead. When $m=1$, the exact asymptotic solutions at small and large distances are parameterized by a single integer parameter $s$. Here we once again study the monopole-antimonopole pair solution of the SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs theory which belongs to the topological trivial sector numerically in its new…
We consider string theory on the Lorentzian Melvin geometry, which is obtained by analytically continuing the two-parameter Euclidean Melvin background. Because this model provides a solvable conformal field theory that describes time-dependent twisted string dynamics, we study the string one-loop partition function and the D-brane spectrum. We found that both the wrapping D2-brane and the codimension-one D-string emit winding strings, and this behavior can be traced to the modified open string Hamiltonian on these probe D-branes.
The Kaluza-Klein monopole is a well known object in both gravity and string theory, related by T-duality to a "smeared" NS5-brane which retains the isometry around the duality circle. As the true NS5-brane solution is localized at a point on the circle, duality implies that the Kaluza-Klein monopole should show some corresponding behavior. In this paper, we express the Kaluza-Klein monopole as a gauged linear sigma model in two dimensions and show that worldsheet instantons give corrections to its geometry. These corrections can be understood as a localization in "winding space" which could be…
We consider the effects of a two-form field on the late-time dynamics of brane gas cosmologies. Assuming thermal equilibrium of winding states, we find that the presence of a form field allows a late stage of expansion of the Universe even when the winding degrees of freedom decay into a pressureless gas of string loops. Finally, we suggest to understand the dimensionality of the Universe not as a result of the thermal equilibrium condition but rather as a consequence of the symmetries of the geometry.
Over the past decade it has become clear that fundamental strings are not the only fundamental degrees of freedom in string theory. D-branes are also part of the spectrum of fundamental states. In this paper we explore some possible effects of D-branes on early Universe string cosmology, starting with two key assumptions: firstly that the initial state of the Universe corresponded to a dense, hot gas in which all degrees of freedom were in thermal equilibrium, and secondly that the topology of the background space admits one-cycles. We argue by t-duality that in this context the cosmological s…
It has recently been shown that the low energy dynamics of the large $N$ gauge theory on $S^3$ at finite temperature reduces to a one-matrix model, where the matrix is given by the holonomy of the gauge field around the Euclidean time direction compactified on a circle. On the other hand, there is a prescription for constructing a closed string field theory in the temporal gauge from a given one-matrix model via loop equations. I identify the closed string field theory in the temporal gauge constructed from the above matrix model as effective closed string field theory that describes the propa…
Brane gas cosmology is a scenario inspired by string theory which proposes a simple resolution to the initial singularity problem and gives a dynamical explanation for the number of spatial dimensions of our universe. In this work we have studied analytically and numerically the late-time behaviour of these type of cosmologies taking a proper care of the annihilation of winding modes. This has help us to clarify and extend several aspects of their dynamics. We have found that the decay of winding states into non-winding states behaving like a gas of ordinary non-relativistic particles preclude…
By the generalization of Chern--Simons topological current and Gauss--Bonnet-Chern theorem, the purpose of this paper is to make a non-Abelian gauge field theory foundation of the topological current of $\tilde{p}$-branes formulated in our previous work. Using $ϕ$--mapping topological current theory proposed by Professor Duan, we find that the topological $\tilde p$-branes are created at every isolated zero of vector field $\vec ϕ(x)$. It is shown that the topological charges carried by $\tilde p$-branes are topologically quantized and labeled by Hopf index and Brouwer degree, i.e., the windin…
We search for tubular solutions in unstable D3-brane. With critical electric field E=1, solutions representing supertubes, which are supersymmetric bound states of fundamental strings, D0-branes, and a cylindrical D2-brane, are found and shown to exhibit BPS-like property. We also point out that boosting such a {\it tachyon tube} solution generates string flux winding around the tube, resulting in helical electric fluxes on the D2-brane. We also discuss issues related to fundamental string, absence of magnetic monopole, and finally more tachyon tubes with noncritical electric field.
We attempt to generalize the effective action for the D-brane-anti-D-brane system obtained from boundary superstring field theory (BSFT) by adding an extra D-brane to it to obtain a covariantized action for 2 D-branes and 1 anti-D-brane. We discuss the approximations made to obtain the effective action in closed form. Among other properties, this effective action admits solitonic solutions of codimension 2 (vortices) when one of the D-brane is far separated from the brane-anti-brane pair.
We propose a manifestly SO(8) invariant BF type Lagrangian for describing the dynamics of M2-brane-anti-M2-brane system in flat spacetime. When one of the scalars which satisfies a free-scalar equation takes a large expectation value, the M2-brane-anti-M2-brane action reduces to the tachyon DBI action of D2-brane-anti-D2-brane system in flat spacetime.
We propose an action for the D0-brane anti-D0-brane system that has its exact solution corresponding to the marginal tachyon profile defined for arbitrary constant separation of these D-branes. We also find its covariant formulation and generalization to higher dimensional Dp-branes.
In this short note we present analysis of the tachyon kink solution in the canonical formalism. We also find Hamiltonian for simplified system of Dp-brane and anti-Dp-brane.
We show that in the context of topological string theories N branes and M anti-branes give rise to Chern-Simons gauge theory with the gauge supergroup $U(N|M)$. We also identify a deformation of the theory which corresponds to brane/anti-brane annihilation. Furthermore we show that when $N=M$ all open string states are BRST trivial in the deformed theory.
Cylindrical braneworlds have been used in the literature as a convenient way to resolve co-dimension-two branes. They are prevented from collapsing by a massless worldvolume field with non-trivial winding, but here we discuss another way of preventing collapse, which is to rotate the brane. We use a simple microscopic field theory model of a domain wall with a condensate for which rotation is a necessity, not just a nice added extra. This is due to a splitting instability, whereby the effective potential trapping the condensate is not strong enough to hold it on the defect in the presence of w…
It has been conjectured that the vortex solution on a D-brane - anti-D-brane system represents a D-brane of two lower dimension. We establish this result by first identifying a series of marginal deformations which create the vortex - antivortex pair on the brane - antibrane system, and then showing that under this series of marginal deformations the original D-brane - anti-D-brane system becomes a D-brane - anti-D-brane system with two lower dimensions. Generalization of this construction to the case of solitons of higher codimension is also discussed.
We present new classical generalized Jacobi elliptic one monopole - antimonopole pair (MAP) solutions of the SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs theory with the Higgs field in the adjoint representation. These generalized 1-MAP solutions are solved with $θ$-winding number $m$=1 and $ϕ$-winding number $n$=1, 2, 3, ... 6. Similar to the generalized Jacobi elliptic one monopole solutions, these generalized 1-MAP solutions are solved by generalizing the large distance behaviour of the solutions to the Jacobi elliptic functions and solving the second order equations of motion numerically when the Higgs potentia…
We develop the quasi-particle picture for Schwarzchild and far from extremal black holes. We show that the thermalization equations of the black hole is recovered from the model of branes and anti-branes. This can also be viewed as a field theory explanation of the relationship between area and entropy for these black holes. As a by product the annihilation rate of branes and anti-branes is computed.
We investigate how the presence of RR magnetic $F_{p+2}$ fluxes affects the energy of classical Dp branes, for specific string theory supersymmetric backgrounds which are solutions to the leading order in $α'$ including back-reaction effects. The Dp brane dynamics is found to be similar to the well known dynamics of particles and strings moving in magnetic fields. We find a class of BPS solutions which generalize the BPS fundamental strings or BPS branes with momentum and winding to the case of non-zero magnetic fields. Remarkably, the interaction with the magnetic fields does not spoil the su…
The time-varying density of D-branes and anti-D-branes in an expanding universe is calculated. The D-brane anti-brane annihilation rate is shown to be too small to compete with the expansion rate of a FRW type universe and the branes over-close the universe. This brane problem is analogous to the old monopole problem. Interestingly however, it is shown that small dimension D-branes annihilate more slowly than high dimension branes. Hence, an initially brany universe may be filled with only low dimension branes at late times. When combined with an appropriate late inflationary theory this leads…
We present an improved effective action for the D-brane-anti-D-brane system obtained from boundary superstring field theory. Although the action looks highly non-trivial, it has simple explicit multi-vortex (i.e. codimension-2 multi-BPS D-brane) multi-anti-vortex solutions. The solutions have a curious degeneracy corresponding to different ``magnetic'' fluxes at the core of each vortex. We also generalize the brane anti-brane effective action that is suitable for the study of the inflationary scenario and the production of defects in the early universe. We show that when a brane and anti-brane…
In a tachyon effective field theory of a non-BPS brane, we construct a classical solution representing a parallel brane-antibrane. The solution is made of a kink and an antikink placed at antipodal points of S^1. Estimation of the brane energy suggests an excitation of a string connecting the two branes, even though the theory is Abelian. We performed fluctuation analysis around the obtained solution, and find the structure of the supersymmetry breaking by the co-existence of the brane and the antibrane. We discuss possible processes of the pair-annihilation of the brane defect.
We investigate the late-time behavior of a universe containing a supergravity gas and wrapped 2-branes in the context of M-theory compactified on T^10. The supergravity gas tends to drive uniform expansion, while the branes impede the expansion of the directions about which they are wrapped. Assuming spatial homogeneity, we study the dynamics both numerically and analytically. At late times the radii obey power laws which are determined by the brane wrapping numbers, leading to interesting hierarchies of scale between the wrapped and unwrapped dimensions. The biggest hierarchy that could evolv…
We generalize our study of the tachyon condensation on the brane-antibrane system [hep-th/0403147] to the intersecting brane-antibrane system. The supergravity solutions of the intersecting brane-antibrane system are characterized by five parameters. We relate these parameters to the microscopic physical parameters, namely, the number of D$p$-branes ($N_1$), the number of ${\bar {\rm D}}p$-branes (${\bar N}_1$), the number of D$(p-4)$-branes ($N_2)$, the number of ${\bar{\rm D}}(p-4)$-branes (${\bar N}_2$) and the tachyon vev $T$. We show that the solution and the ADM mass capture all the requ…
We derive the perturbative four-dimensional effective theory describing heterotic M-theory with branes and anti-branes in the bulk space. The back-reaction of both the branes and anti-branes is explicitly included. To first order in the heterotic strong-coupling expansion, we find that the forces on branes and anti-branes vanish and that the KKLT procedure of simply adding to the supersymmetric theory the probe approximation to the energy density of the anti-brane reproduces the correct potential. However, there are additional non-supersymmetric corrections to the gauge-kinetic functions and m…
String theories with branes can often be generalized by adding brane-antibrane pairs. We explore the cancellation of anomalies in this more general context, extending the familiar anomaly-cancelling mechanisms, both for ten-dimensional string theories with D-branes and for certain supersymmetric compactifications.
Static axially symmetric sphaleron-type solutions describing chains of interpolating Skyrmion--anti-Skyrmions have been constructed numerically. The configurations are characterized by two integers n and m, where $\pm n$ are the winding numbers of the constituent Skyrmion and anti-Skyrmion and the second integer m defines type of the solution, it has zero topological charge for even m and for odd values of m the Skyrmion--anti-Skyrmion chain has topological charge n. For the vanishing mass term we confirm the existence of such chain solutions for winding number $|n| \ge 2$. The similarity with…
We survey barrier penetration by quantum tunneling for four cases: nonrelativistic point particles, scalar fields, relativistic point particles, and DBI branes. We examine two novel features that arise for DBI brane tunneling: the rate can sometimes increase as the barrier gets higher; and the instanton "wrinkles". We show that these features can be understood as the effect of the quantum sea of virtual brane-antibrane pairs. This sea exponentially augments the decay rate, with possible cosmological consequences.
In this paper we give the boundary string field theory description of brane-antibrane systems. From the world-sheet action of brane-antibrane systems we obtain the tachyon potential and discuss the tachyon condensation exactly. We also find the world-volume action including the gauge fields. Moreover we determine RR-couplings exactly for non-BPS branes and brane-antibranes. These couplings are written by superconnections and correspond to K^1(M) and K^0(M) for the non-BPS branes and brane-antibranes, respectively. We also show that Myers terms appear if we include the transverse scalars in the…
Recently, some authors have considered the quantum spectrum of black holes . This consideration is extended to tachyonic black holes in a brane-anti-brane system. In this study, black holes are constructed from two branes which are connected by a tachyonic tube. As the branes come closer to each other, they evolve and make a transition to thermal black branes. It will be shown that the spectrum of these black holes depends on the tachonic potential and the separation distance between the branes. By decreasing the separation distance, more energy emerges and the spectrum of the black hole incre…
We investigate the static solutions of Callan and Maldecena and Gibbons to lowest order Dirac-Born-Infeld theory. Among them are charged wormhole solutions connecting branes to anti-branes. It is seen that there are no such solutions when the separation between the brane and anti-brane is smaller than some minimum value. The minimum distance coincides with the energy minimum, and depends monotonically on the charge. Making the charge sufficiently large, such that the minimum separation is much bigger than $ \sqrt{α'}$, may suppress known quantum processes leading to decay of the brane-anti-bra…
We describe a tachyon-free stable non-BPS brane configuration in type IIA string theory. The configuration is an elliptic model involving rotated NS5 branes, D4 branes and anti-D4 branes, and is dual to a fractional brane-antibrane pair placed at a conifold singularity. This configuration exhibits an interesting behaviour as we vary the radius of the compact direction. Below a critical radius the D4 and anti-D4 branes are aligned, but as the radius increases above the critical value the potential between them develops a minimum away from zero. This signals a phase transition to a configuration…
We investigate an action which resembles the effective action of brane-antibrane system derived from boundary string field theory. We find that the action has smooth vortex solutions which saturate the Bogomol'nyi bound.
We study the dynamics of anti-M2 branes in a warped Stenzel solution with M2 charges dissolved in fluxes by taking into account their full backreaction on the geometry. The resulting supergravity solution has a singular magnetic four-form flux in the near-brane region. We examine the possible resolution of this singularity via the polarization of anti-M2 branes into M5 branes, and compute the corresponding polarization potential for branes smeared on the finite-size four-sphere at the tip of the Stenzel space. We find that the potential has no minimum. We then use the potential for smeared bra…
In type II string theories, we examine intersecting brane constructions containing brane-antibrane pairs suspended between 5-branes, and more general non-BPS constructions. The tree-level spectra are obtained in each case. We identify various models with distinct physics: parallel brane-antibrane pairs, adjacent pairs, non-adjacent pairs, and configurations which break all supersymmetry even though any pair of branes preserves some supersymmetry. In each case we examine the possible decay modes. Some of these configurations turn out to be tachyon-free, stable non-BPS states. We use T-duality t…
Anti-D-branes inserted in warped throat geometries (supported by fluxes that carry D-brane charges) develop unphysical singularities. It has been argued that these singularities could be resolved when one goes beyond the linearized approximation or includes the effects of brane polarization. In this paper we consider anti-D6 branes, whose singularities have been shown to exist at the full non-linear level, and demonstrate that there is no D8 brane polarization that can resolve the singularity. We comment on the potential implications of this result for the resolution of anti-D3 brane singulari…
Crossing symmetry appears in Dbrane-anti-Dbrane dynamics in the form of an analytic continuation from U(N) for N brane amplitudes to U(N-p,p) for the interactions of N-p branes with p anti-branes. I consider the consequences for supersymmetry and brane-anti-brane forces.
An exact solution, in which a D2-brane and an anti-D2-brane are connected by an elliptically tubular D2-brane, is obtained without any junction condition. The solution is shown to preserve one quarter of the supersymmetries of the type-IIA Minkowski vacuum. We show that the configuration cannot be obtained by "blowing-up" from some inhomogeneously D0-charged superstrings. The BPS bound tells us that it is rather composed of D0-charged D2-brane-anti-D2-brane pair and a strip of superstrings connecting them. We obtain the correction to the charges of the string end points in the constant magneti…
We consider the Penrose limit of the solution of D5-brane given in the Anti-de Sitter space and analyse the shape of the D5-brane in the pp-wave background. We find that the D5-brane leads to the branes and the throats connecting the branes. The branes spread on R^4 with periodic values of the light-cone time x^+ and the throats lie along x^+. We also give some comments on holography.
In this paper we point out the inevitability of an explosive production of gauge field and gravity wave during an open string tachyon condensation in a cosmological setting. We will be particularly studying an example of brane-anti-brane inflation in a warped throat where inflation ends via tachyon condensation. We point out that a tachyonic instability helps fragmenting the homogeneous tachyon and excites gauge field and contributes to the stress energy tensor which also feeds into the gravity waves.
We argue that the early universe may be described by an initial state of space-filling branes and anti-branes. At high temperature this system is stable. At low temperature tachyons appear and lead to a phase transition, dynamics, and the creation of D-branes. These branes are cosmologically produced in a generic fashion by the Kibble mechanism. From an entropic point of view, the formation of lower dimensional branes is preferred and $D3$ brane-worlds are exponentially more likely to form than higher dimensional branes. Virtually any brane configuration can be created from such phase transiti…
We study the dynamical behavior of a pair of Dp-brane and anti Dp-brane ($0 \leq p \leq 6$) moving parallel to each other in the region where the brane and anti-brane annihilation will not occur and the low energy description is valid. Given this, we perform a general analysis, in the center of mass frame, of the behavior of the effective potential with respect to the relative brane separation and find that the classical orbits of this system are in general unbound except for $p = 6$ case for which classical bound orbits exist. The non-linearity of the low energy DBI action for D-brane is impo…
