In this thesis we discuss some nonperturbative and noncommutative aspects of string theory. We present low-energy background field solutions corresponding to various D-branes (and their bound states) and intersecting branes in flat and pp-wave spacetime. A class of D-brane bound states are constructed from charged macroscopic strings and they are shown to satisfy the mass-charge relationship of 1/2 BPS bound states. Another class of D-branes and intersecting branes are constructed, by solving the type II field equations explicitly, in pp-wave background with constant and non-constant flux. The worldsheet construction of these D-branes and their spacetime supersymmetry properties have also been analyzed in some detail.
Further, we study an example of open strings ending on D-branes with mixed boundary condition. In this context, we analyze various open and mixed sector tree-level amplitudes of N=2 strings in the presence of constant NS-NS antisymmetric tensor (B) field.
We study supersymmetric intersecting configurations of D-branes with B-field backgrounds. Noncommutative D-brane or M-brane pairs can intersect supersymmetrically over (p-1)-brane, as well as over (p-2)-brane like ordinary branes. d=10 and d=11 supergravity solutions are obtained and the supersymmetry projection rule is examined. As an application we study a noncommutative D7-brane probe in noncommutative D3-brane background, intersecting at noncommutative plane, which describes BPS baryons of noncommutative gauge theory in the context of AdS/CFT correspondence.
The M5-brane is investigated near critical field-strength. We show that this limit on the M5-brane reduces to the noncommutative open string limit on the D4-brane. The reduction on a two-torus leads to both the noncommutative open string limit and the noncommutative Yang-Mills limit on the D3-brane. The decoupled noncommutative five-brane is identified with the strong coupling limit of the noncommutative open string theory on the D4-brane and S-duality on the noncommutative D3-brane is identified with a modular transformation on the five-brane. We argue that the open membrane metric defines a …
We construct intersecting D-branes as noncommutative solitons in bosonic and type II string theory. ``Defect'' branes which are D-branes containing bubbles of the closed string vacuum play an important role in the construction.
CFT construction of S-branes describing the rolling and bouncing tachyons is analyzed in the context of a $θ$-noncommutative deformation of minisuperspace. Half s-brane and s-brane in the noncommutative minisuperspace are analyzed and exact analytic solutions, involving the noncommutative parameter $θ$ and compatible with the boundary conditions at infinity, are found. Comparison with the usual commutative minisuperspace is finally performed.
We use the nonabelian action of N coincident D(-1) branes in constant background fields, in the N $\to \infty$ limit, to construct noncommutative D-brane actions in an arbitrary noncommutative description and comment on tachyon condensation from this perspective.
In string theory, D-branes can be expressed as a configuration of infinitely many lower dimensional D-branes. Using this relation, the worldvolume theory of D-branes can be regarded as the worldvolume theory of the infinitely many lower dimensional branes. In the description in terms of the lower dimensional branes, some of the worldvolume coordinates become noncommutative. Actually this noncommutative theory can be regarded as noncommutative Yang-Mills theory. Therefore the worldvolume theory of D-branes have two equivalent descriptions, namely the usual static gauge description using ordinar…
We study the mass and different RR charge distributions of the BPS (p,p-2)-brane bound states in the closed string brane-like $σ$-model. We show that such brane bound states can be realized by introducing a constant B field in the closed string theory. In addition we show that the worldvolume coordinates of these brane bound states turn out to be noncommutative.
We perform the consistent quantization of open string D-brane in non-constant NS-NS closed string B field background by directly imposing the worldsheet conformal symmetry. In addition to the previous noncommutative D-brane coordinates quantization with constant noncommutative parameter $θ$, we obtain a set of constraints on the B field which can be interpreted as a quantum consistent deformation of a curved noncommutative D-brane.
We discuss the nonabelian world-volume action which governs the dynamics of N coincident Dp-branes. In this theory, the branes' transverse displacements are described by matrix-valued scalar fields, and so this is a natural physical framework for the appearance of noncommutative geometry. One example is the dielectric effect by which Dp-branes may be polarized into a noncommutative geometry by external fields. Another example is the appearance of noncommutative geometries in the description of intersecting D-branes of differing dimensions, such as D-strings ending on a D3- or D5-brane. We also…
We derive the noncommutative Dirac-Born-Infeld action for the $D$-brane, which governs dynamics of $D$-brane with a NS-NS $B$-field in the low energy regime. Depending on some details of the path integral prescriptions, both ordinary Dirac-Born-Infeld action and noncommutative one can be obtained by evaluating the same Polyakov string path integral for the open string ending on the $D$-brane. Thus, it establishes the equivalence of the noncommutative Dirac-Born-Infeld action and the ordinary one.
These lectures provide an introduction to noncommutative geometry and its origins in quantum mechanics and to the construction of solitons in noncommutative field theory. These ideas are applied to the construction of D-branes as solitons of the tachyon field in noncommutative open string theory. A brief discussion is given of the K-theory classification of D-brane charge in terms of the K-theory of operator algebras. Based on lectures presented at the Komaba 2000 workshop, Nov. 14-16 2000.
We study D=3 field theories on the D3-branes stretched between two NS5-branes with NS B-field background. The theory is a noncommutative gauge theory. The mirror symmetry and S-duality of the theory are discussed. A new feature is that the mirror of the noncommutative gauge theory is not a field theory but an open string decoupled from the closed string. We also consider brane creation phenomena and use the result to discuss the analogue of the Seiberg duality. A noncommutative soliton is interpreted as a D1-brane induced on D3-brane.
The Higgs sector of the low-energy physics of n of coincident D-branes contains the necessary elements for constructing noncommutative manifolds. The coordinates orthogonal to the coincident branes, as well as their conjugate momenta, take values in the Lie algebra of the gauge group living inside the brane stack. In the limit when n=\infty (and in the absence of orientifolds), this is the unitary Lie algebra u(\infty). Placing a smooth manifold K orthogonally to the stack of coincident D-branes one can construct a noncommutative C*-algebra that provides a natural definition of a noncommutativ…
We give a representation of the volume preserving diffeomorphism of $\bR^p$ in terms of the noncommutative (p-2)-branes whose kinetic term is described by the Hopf term. In the static gauge, the (p-2)-brane can be described by the free fields and it suggests that the quantization of the algebra is possible.
We write down couplings of the fields on a single BPS Dp-brane with noncommutative world-volume coordinates to the RR-forms in type II theories, in a manifestly background independent way. This generalises the usual Chern-Simons action for a commutative Dp-brane. We show that the noncommutative Chern-Simons terms can be mapped to Myers terms on a collection of infinitely many D-instantons. We also propose Chern-Simons couplings for unstable non-BPS branes, and show that condensation of noncommutative tachyons on these branes leads to the correct Myers terms on the decay products.
We investigate, in a certain decoupling limit, the effect of having a constant C-field on the M-theory five-brane using an open membrane probe. We define an open membrane metric for the five-brane that remains non-degenerate in the limit. The canonical quantisation of the open membrane boundary leads to a noncommutative loop space which is a functional analogue of the noncommutative geometry that occurs for D-branes.
We investigate and interpret a large class of soliton solutions found in noncommutative tachyon condensation. These constructions make extensive use of the idea that Dp-branes may be built out of lower dimensional branes. Finally we comment on a recently proposed solution generating technique.
We explore noncommutative D-branes in the AdS_5xS^5 background from the viewpoint of κ-invariance of a covariant open string action in the Green-Schwarz formulation. Boundary conditions to ensure the κ-invariance of the action lead to possible configurations of noncommutative D-branes. With this covariant method, we derive configurations of 1/4 BPS noncommutative D-branes. The resulting D-branes other than D-string are 1/4 BPS at any places, and the D-string is exceptional and it is 1/2 BPS at the origin and 1/4 BPS outside the origin. All of them are reduced to possible 1/4 BPS or 1/2 BPS AdS…
We show that in certain superstring compactifications, gauge theories on noncommutative tori will naturally appear as D-brane world-volume theories. This gives strong evidence that they are well-defined quantum theories. It also gives a physical derivation of the identification proposed by Connes, Douglas and Schwarz of Matrix theory compactification on the noncommutative torus with M theory compactification with constant background three-form tensor field.
The classical cross section for low energy absorption of the RR-scalar by a stack of noncommutative D3-branes in the large NS B-field limit is calculated. In the spirit of AdS/CFT correspondence, this cross section is related to two point function of a certain operator in noncommutative Yang-Mills theory. Compared at the same gauge coupling, the result agrees with that of obtained from ordinary D3-branes. This is consistent with the expectation that ordinary and noncommutative Yang-Mills theories are equivalent below the noncommutativity scale, but it is a nontrivial prediction above this scal…
We apply noncommutative geometry to a system of N parallel D-branes, which is interpreted as a quantum space. The Dirac operator defining the quantum differential calculus is identified to be the supercharge for strings connecting D-branes. As a result of the calculus, Connes' Yang-Mills action functional on the quantum space reproduces the dimensionally reduced U(N) super Yang-Mills action as the low energy effective action for D-brane dynamics. Several features that may look ad hoc in a noncommutative geometric construction are shown to have very natural physical or geometric origin in the D…
We derive the noncommutative torus compactification of M(atrix) theory directly from the string theory by imposing mixed boundary conditions on the membranes. The relation of various dualities in string theory and M(atrix) theory compactification on the noncommutative torus are studied.
We argue that for a certain class of symplectic manifolds the category of A-branes (which includes the Fukaya category as a full subcategory) is equivalent to a noncommutative deformation of the category of B-branes (which is equivalent to the derived category of coherent sheaves) on the same manifold. This equivalence is different from Mirror Symmetry and arises from the Seiberg-Witten transform which relates gauge theories on commutative and noncommutative spaces. More generally, we argue that for certain generalized complex manifolds the category of generalized complex branes is equivalent …
We derive the couplings of noncommutative D-branes to spatially varying Ramond-Ramond fields, extending our earlier results in hep-th/0009101. These couplings are expressed in terms of *n products of operators involving open Wilson lines. Equivalence of the noncommutative to the commutative couplings implies interesting identities as well as an expression for the Seiberg-Witten map that was previously conjectured. We generalise our couplings to include transverse scalars, thereby obtaining a Seiberg-Witten map relating commutative and noncommutative descriptions of these scalars. RR couplings …
We discuss the supergravity couplings of noncommutative D-branes by considering the disk amplitudes with one closed string insertion. The result confirms a recent proposal for the general form of the noncommutative Yang-Mills operators coupling to the massless closed string modes. The construction involves smearing Yang-Mills field variables along an open Wilson line. For multiple D-branes interacting with background supergravity fields, this prescription reduces, in the B=0 limit, to the ``symmetrized trace'' prescription, and the supergravity fields are seen to be functionals of the nonabeli…
We discuss an open supermembrane in the presence of a constant three-form. The boundary conditions to ensure the kappa-invariance of the action lead to possible Dirichlet branes. It is shown that a noncommutative (NC) M5-brane is possible as a boundary and the self-duality condition that the flux on the world-volume satisfies is derived from the requirement of the kappa-symmetry. We also find that the open supermembrane can attach to each of infinitely many M2-branes on an M5-brane, namely a strong flux limit of the NC M5-brane.
Closed string dynamics in the presence of noncommutative Dp-branes is investigated. In particular, we compute bulk closed string two-point scattering amplitudes; the bulk space-time geometries encoded in the amplitudes are shown to be consistent with the recently proposed background space-time geometries dual to noncommutative Yang-Mills theories. Three-point closed string absorption/emission amplitudes are obtained to show some features of noncommutative Dp-branes, such as modified pole structures and exponential phase factors linearly proportional to the external closed string momentum.
We briefly review how to discuss noncommutative (NC) M5-branes and intersecting NC M5-branes from kappa-invariance of an open supermembrane action with constant three-form fluxes. The kappa-invariance gives rise to possible Dirichlet brane configurations. We shortly summarize a construction of projection operators for NC M5-branes and some intersecting configurations of NC M5-branes. A strong flux limit of them is also discussed.
In the BRST-BFV scheme for noncommutative D-branes with constant NS $B$-field, introducing ghost degrees of freedom we construct the gauge fixed Hamiltonian and corresponding effective Lagrangian invariant under nilpotent BRST charge. It is also shown that the presence of auxiliary variables introduced via the improved Dirac formalism plays a crucial role in the construction of the BRST invariant Lagrangian.
We investigate the open string modes, describing the world-volume of a D p-brane, for its cyclic symmetry in presence of a magnetic field. It is argued that the constant coordinate modes receive non-perturbative correction. We show that they introduce the notion of noncommutativity on the D p-brane world-volume and make it UV-renormalizable. An analogy between cyclic symmetry ($\a'$-corrections) and the noncommutative geometry ($Θ_A$-corrections) is presented to explain some of the unusual IR phenomena often noticed in a noncommutative theory.
We propose a way to identify the gauge invariant operator in noncommutative gauge theory on a D-brane with nonzero B field which couples to a specific supergravity mode in the bulk. This uses the description of noncommutative gauge theories in terms of ordinary $U(\infty)$ gauge theories in lower dimensions. The proposal is verified in the DBI approximation. Other authors have shown that the proposal is also consistent with explicit string worldsheet calculations. We comment on implications to holography.
We obtain the couplings of noncommutative branes of type II string theories to constant Ramond-Ramond backgrounds, for BPS as well as non-BPS branes, in the background-independent description. For the BPS branes, we also generalize these couplings to other descriptions, and thereby argue their equivalence to the known couplings in the commutative description. The first part is a review of earlier work while the second part contains some additional observations.
The noncommutative bion core of Constable, Myers and Tafjord (hep-th/9911136) describes the BPS D1-D3 brane intersection (where a single bundle of D1-branes is attached to the D3 brane) in the nonabelian Born-Infeld theory of D1-branes. The possibility of extending this construction to BPS configurations with multiple separated parallel bundles of D1-branes attached to a single D3-brane is discussed. The problem is reduced to solving the Nahm equation with novel boundary conditions. A concrete, non-trivial solution is presented.
The effective action for the low energy scattering of two gravitons with a D-brane in the presence of a constant antisytmetric $B$ field in bosonic string theory is calculated and the modification to the standard D-brane action to first order in $α'$ is obtained.
We construct twisted quantum bundles and adjoint sections on noncommutative $T^4$, and investigate relevant D-brane bound states with non-Abelian backgrounds. We also show that the noncommutative $T^4$ with non-Abelian backgrounds exhibits SO$(4,4|Z)$ duality and via this duality we get a Morita equivalent $T^4$ on which only D0-branes exist. For a reducible non-Abelian background, the moduli space of D-brane bound states in Type II string theory takes the form $\prod_a (T^4)^{q_a}/S_{q_a}$.
This is a summary of a series of papers hep-th/9910263,0005283,0010066 written with B. Chen, T. Matsuo and K. Murakami on a p-p', (p<p^{\prime}) open string with B_{ij} field, which has led us to the explicit identification of the Dp-brane with the noncommutative projector soliton via the gaussian damping factor. A lecture given at Summer Institute 2000, FujiYoshida, Yamanashi, Japan, at August 7-14, 2000.
We consider systems of non-threshold bound states (D(p$-$2), Dp), for $2\le p \le 6$, in type II string theories. Each of them can be viewed as Dp branes with a nonzero (rank two) Neveu-Schwarz $B$ field. We study the noncommutative effects in the gravity dual descriptions of noncommutative gauge theories for these systems in the limit where the brane worldvolume theories decouple from gravity. We find that the noncommutative effects are actually due to the presence of infinitely many D(p$-$2) branes in the (D(p$-$2), Dp) system which play the dominant role over the Dp branes in the large $B$-…
Lagrangians of the Abelian Gauge Theory and its dual are related in terms of a shifted action. We show that in d=4 constrained Hamiltonian formulation of the shifted action yields Hamiltonian description of the dual theory, without referring to its Lagrangian. We apply this method, at the first order in the noncommutativity parameter theta, to the noncommutative U(1) gauge theory possessing spatial noncommutativity. Its dual theory is effectively a space--time noncommutative U(1) gauge theory. However, we obtain a Hamiltonian formulation where time is commuting. Space-time noncommutative D3--b…
We study intersecting noncommutative (NC) M5-branes from κ-invariance of an open supermembrane action with constant three-form fluxes. The $κ$-invariance gives rise to possible D-brane configurations for which projection operators can be determined. We construct projection operators for two types of 1/4 BPS intersecting NC M5-branes. The one is an intersection of two NC M5-branes: NC M5\bot NC M5 (3). The other is that of a NC M5-brane and a commutative (C) M5-brane: NC M5\bot C M5 (1). A NC M5-brane can be viewed as a bound state of M5 and M2, and the configurations M2\bot M5 (1) and M2\bot M…
We study tachyon condensation on noncommutative toric orbifolds with a $Z_2$ discrete group and explore the various kins of brane bound states arising in the case of irrational values of the B-field. We show that $Z_$ symmetry of the orbifolds incorporates naturally anti-branes in the spectrum and leads to equivalent results as those obtained by starting from an original pair of D-barD system on quantum torii. A specific analysis is deserved to the irrational representation of NC orbifolds and to the unstable bound states generated by the condensation.
When unstable Dp-branes in type II string theory are placed in a B-field, the resulting tachyonic world-volume theory becomes noncommutative. We argue that for large noncommutativity parameter, condensation of the tachyon as a noncommutative soliton leads to new decay modes of the Dp-brane into (p-2)-brane configurations, which we interpret as suitably smeared BPS D(p-1)-branes. Some of these configurations are metastable. We discuss various generalizations of this decay process.
We show how the T-duality is realized for D-branes with noncommutative world-volume coordinates. We discuss D-branes wrapped on tori and the result is that the recently found noncommutative actions form a consistent collection due to the T-duality mapping between noncommutative D-branes and rotated commutative D-branes on deformed tori.
We give the supergravity duals of commutative and noncommutative non-abelian gauge theories with N=2 in 2+1 dimensions. The moduli space on the Coulomb branch of these theories is studied using supergravity.
We show that when the field strength H of the NS-NS B field does not vanish, the coordinates X and momenta P of an open string endpoints satisfy a set of mixed commutation relations among themselves. Identifying X and P with the coordinates and derivatives of the D-brane world volume, we find a new type of noncommutative spaces which is very different from those associated with a constant B field background.
In this paper we try to construct noncommutative Yang-Mills theory for generic Poisson manifolds. It turns out that the noncommutative differential calculus defined in an old work is exactly what we need. Using this calculus, we generalize results about the Seiberg-Witten map, the Dirac-Born-Infeld action, the matrix model and the open string quantization for constant B field to non-constant background with H=0.
It is known that if we compactify D0-branes on a torus with constant B-field, the resulting theory becomes SYM theory on a noncommutative dual torus. We discuss the extension to the case of a H-field background. In the case of constant H-field on a three-torus, we derive the constraints to realize this compactification by considering the correspondence to string theory. We carry out this work as a first step to examine the possibility to describe transverse M5-branes in Matrix theory.
We consider the quantum mechanics of a particle on a noncommutative two-sphere with the coordinates obeying an SU(2)-algebra. The momentum operator can be constructed in terms of an $SU(2)\times SU(2)$-extension and the Heisenberg algebra recovered in the smooth manifold limit. Similar considerations apply to the more general SU(n) case.
Noncommutative torus compactification of Matrix model is shown to be a direct consequence of quantization of the open strings attached to a D-membrane with a non-vanishing background $B$ field. We calculate the BPS spectrum of such a brane system using both string theory results and DBI action. The DBI action leads to a new transformation property of the compactification radii under the $SL(2,Z)_N$ transformations.
We study noncommutative geometry in the framework of the Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin(BFT) scheme, which converts second class constraint system into first class one. In an open string theory noncommutative geometry appears due to the mixed boundary conditions having second class constraints, which arise in string theory with $D$-branes under a constant Neveu-Schwarz $B$-field. Introduction of a new coordinate $y$ on $D$-brane through BFT analysis allows us to obtain the commutative geometry with the help of the first class constraints, and the resulting action corresponding to the first class Hamil…
We study a brane-antibrane system and a non-BPS D-brane in SU(2) WZW model. We first discuss the tachyon condensation using the vertex operator formalism and find the generation of codimension two D-branes after the condensation. Our result is consistent with the recent interpretation that a D2-brane is a bound state of D0-branes. Then we investigate the world volume effective theory on a non-BPS D-brane. It becomes a field theory on the ``fuzzy sphere'' when the level is sent to infinity. The most interesting feature is that there exist the noncommutative tachyonic solitons and we can identif…
We show that the relation between D-branes and noncommutative tachyons leads very naturally to the relation between D-branes and K-theory. We also discuss some relations between D-branes and K-homology, provide a noncommutative generalization of the ABS construction, and give a simple physical interpretation of Bott periodicity. In addition, a framework for constructing Neveu-Schwarz fivebranes as noncommutative solitons is proposed.
We study the moduli space of the D0-brane system on Dp-branes realized in the noncommutative super Yang-Mills theory. By examining the fluctuations around the solitonic solutions generated by solution generating technique, we confirm the interpretation of the moduli as the positions of D0-branes on Dp-branes. Low-energy scattering process is also examined for two D0-branes. We find that the D0-branes scatter at right angle for head-on collision in the D0-D4 system. For D0-D6 and D0-D8 systems we find special solutions which reduce to the D0-D4 case, giving the same behavior. This suggests that…
On a noncommutative space of rank-1, we construct a codimension-one soliton explicitly and, in the context of noncommutative bosonic open string field theory, identify it with the D24-brane. We compute the tension of the proposed D24-brane, yielding an exact value and show that it is related to the tension of the codimension two D23-brane by the string T-duality. This resolves an apparent puzzle posed by the result of Harvey, Kraus, Larsen and Martinec and proves that the T-duality is a gauge symmetry; in particular, at strong noncommutativity, it is part of the U(oo) gauge symmetry on the wor…
In this note, we extend the noncommutative bion core solution of Constable, Myers and Tafjord (hep-th/9911136) to include the effects of a nonzero NS-NS two-form B. The result is a `tilted bion' in which the core expands out to a single D3-brane at an angle to the D1-brane core. Its properties agree perfectly with an analysis of the dual situation, that of a magnetic charge on an abelian D3-brane in a background worldvolume magnetic field. We also demonstrate that this agreement extends beyond geometry to include the field strength on the D3-brane. We make a proposal for including possible wor…
We construct the supergravity solution in 11 dimensions describing D6-branes wrapped around a Kahler four-cycle with a B-field along the flat directions of the brane. The configuration is dual to an N=2 noncommutative gauge theory in 2+1 dimensions. We also construct the four associated independent Killing spinors. The phenomenon of supersymmetry without supersymmetry appears naturally when compactifying to type IIA or 8d gauged supergravity. Therefore, this solution also provides an 11d background with four supercharges and four-form flux, which is not obtainable from 8d gauged supergravity.
In the paper "Constraint Quantization of Open String in Background $B$ field and Noncommutative D-brane", it is claimed that the boundary conditions lead to an infinite set of secondary constraints and Dirac brackets result in a non-commutative Poisson structure for D-brain. Here we show that contrary to the arguments in that paper, the set of secondary constraints on the boundary is finite and the non-commutativity algebra can not be obtained by evaluating the Dirac brackets.
Recently a new approach to inflation proposal has been constructed via the smeared coherent state picture of spacetime noncommutativity. Here we generalize this viewpoint to a Randall-Sundrum II braneworld scenario. This model realizes an inflationary, bouncing solution without recourse to any axillary scalar or vector fields. There is no initial singularity and the model has the potential to produce scale invariant spectrum of scalar perturbations.
We construct the exact noncommutative solutions on tori. This gives an exact description of tachyon condensation on bosonic D-branes, non-BPS D-branes and brane-antibrane systems. We obtain various bound states of D-branes after the tachyon condensation. Our results show that these solutions can be generated by applying the gauge Morita equivalence between the constant curvature projective modules. We argue that there is a general framework of the noncommutative geometry based on the notion of Morita equivalence which underlies this specific example.
We find new BPS solutions to the nonabelian theory on a world-volume of parallel D1-branes. Our solutions describe two parallel, separated bundles of N D1-branes expanding out to form a single orthogonal D3-brane. This configuration corresponds to two charge N magnetic monopoles in the world-volume of a single D3-brane, deforming the D3-brane into two parallel spikes. We obtain the emergent surface corresponding to our nonabelian D1-brane configuration and demonstrate, at finite N, a surprisingly accurate agreement with the shape of the D3-brane world-volume as obtained from the abelian Born-I…
