text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The holographic principle  is a reformulation of theories with gravity as a theory without gravity in fewer dimensions. Such a reformulation implies a one-to-one correspondence for the degrees of freedom and the observables between the bulk and the boundary. This seems unlikely at first sight because these theories live on space-times of different dimensions. The critical ingredient that makes the holographic principle work is the presence of gravity in the bulk theory. It was shown, in a number of examples, that distinct states which are indistinguishable from the boundary in the absence of gravity become distinguishable when the effects of gravity are taken into account . Nonetheless, the complete account of bulk/boundary correspondence is beyond our present understanding of holography.

The most concrete realization of the holographic principle known to date is the AdS/CFT correspondence . The holographic mapping of the degrees of freedom and the observables are much better understood for this class of theories. The canonical example of this correspondence is the duality between $`𝒩=4`$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in 3+1 dimensions (boundary) and the type IIB string theory on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ (bulk). Under this correspondence, the Kaluza-Klein modes of the supergravity fields on $`AdS_5`$ are identified with the chiral primary operators on the SYM. This mapping is justified in part by the fact that both sides assemble into short supermultiplets of the superconformal algebra. In the Hamiltonian treatment of the SYM on $`R\times S^3`$, these chiral primary operators can be associated to the physical states of the theory created by acting with the operator on the vacuum in the infinite past. On the AdS side, such a state corresponds to exciting the associated Kaluza-Klein mode. The energy of such an excited state (in units of the AdS radius) is the dimension of the chiral primary operator (see section 3.3 of ). This provides a concrete identification of some of the states in the boundary and in the bulk.

In a recent paper, it was suggested on the contrary that this picture should be drastically different when the effect of angular momentum along $`S^5`$ is taken into account . These authors considered Kaluza-Klein excitations carrying some angular momentum along the $`S^5`$ and considered the possibility that there exists a stable configuration of spherical branes in $`S^5`$ carrying the same quantum numbers. Although spherical branes are unstable against shrinking due to their own tensions in the trivial vacuum, there is an additional repulsive force due to the coupling to the background Ramond-Ramond field in its presence. The authors of  found that there indeed exists a stable spherical brane configuration.

On one hand, the observation of  is very intriguing. The size of the spherical brane grows with angular momentum. However, since the size of the brane can not exceed the size of the $`S^5`$, there is a bound on the allowed angular momentum for the spherical branes. This appears to offer a natural explanation for the stringy exclusion principle . However, one very important puzzle is raised by the existence of such a spherical brane. There appear to be two states on the supergravity side corresponding to the state created by the chiral primary operators on the SYM side. This raises several questions regarding the nature of holographic principle in AdS/CFT correspondence. Which of these states should one associate with the chiral primary operators on the SYM side? More importantly, what is the SYM interpretation of the states not corresponding to the chiral primaries? One should be able to address these questions in order to resolve the holographic dictionary.

In this article, we will demonstrate that the situation is even more complicated. In addition to the stable configuration of spherical 3-branes in $`S^5`$, there is yet another stable configuration of spherical 3-brane in $`AdS_5`$ with exactly the same quantum numbers. One must therefore find the appropriate SYM interpretation to all of these brane configurations.

This paper is organized as follows. We will begin in section 2 by briefly reviewing the spherical D3-branes in the $`S^5`$. In section 3, we will construct the configuration of spherical D3-branes in $`AdS_5`$ and describe some of its properties. In section 4, we will construct a classical solution to the equation of motion of SYM which shares much of the properties of the spherical brane solution of section 3. We will conclude in section 5. Some useful formulas are collected in the appendices.

## 2 Spherical Branes in $`S^5`$

Let us begin by reviewing the original argument for the existence of stable spherical brane configurations in $`S^5`$ . We will work with $`AdS_5`$ in global coordinates

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R^2}{\mathrm{cos}^2\rho }}\left(d\tau ^2+d\rho ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\rho d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2\right)+R^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_5^2,`$
$`C_{t\mathrm{\Omega }_3\mathrm{\Omega }_3\mathrm{\Omega }_3}`$ $`=`$ $`TR^4\mathrm{tan}^4\rho ,`$ (2.1)
where $`R`$ is the radius of $`AdS_5`$.

Consider a graviton with angular momentum $`L`$ along the $`S^5`$. In the presence of the background 5-form field strength, one might expect such a graviton to lower its own energy by “blowing up” into a spherical D3-brane along the lines of Myers’ mechanism described in . This can not actually happen in this case because the graviton saturates the BPS bound and its energy can not be made any smaller.111Even in the original context of dielectric D0-brane described in , classical instability for the D0-branes to blow up into a spherical D2-brane is stabilized when the gravitational back reaction of the background RR field strength is taken into account. We will elaborate further on this point in the appendix A. At best, one can expect to find a spherical brane carrying the same energy $`E=P=L/R`$ as the graviton.

Let us see that this is indeed the case. The Lagrangian for this system is given by

$$=TR\mathrm{\Omega }_3r^3\sqrt{1(1r^2/R^2)\omega ^2}+\omega N\frac{r^4}{R^4}.$$
(2.2)
where

$$\omega =\frac{d\varphi }{d\tau },$$
(2.3)
and $`\varphi `$ is the angular parameter along the equator of $`S^5`$. Due to the rotational invariance along the equator, the angular momentum $`L=/\omega `$ is conserved. Similarly, the conserved energy (in units of $`1/R`$) is

$$E=\omega L=\sqrt{\frac{N^2r^6}{R^6}+\frac{(LNr^4/R^4)^2}{1r^2/R^2}}.$$
(2.4)
The energy $`E`$ as a function of $`r`$ is illustrated in figure 1. The local minimum of $`E`$ at $`r=\sqrt{\frac{L}{N}}R`$ corresponds to the stable configuration of spherical D3 brane of that radius.

The fact that $`\sqrt{\frac{L}{N}}R`$ must be smaller than $`R`$ places a bound $`LN`$ on the angular momentum, which was interpreted in  as the manifestation of the stringy exclusion principle . Looking at the form of figure 1, however, it is clear that there is another minimum at $`r=0`$. This is a perfectly good solution to the equation of motion, at least classically222Due to its very small size, there will be a strong curvature correction to the DBI action.. Moreover, it is clear that this minimum exists also for $`L>N`$. This raises a serious conundrum in AdS/CFT correspondence: If the minimum at $`r=\sqrt{\frac{L}{N}}R`$ is to correspond to the chiral primary operators (to match with the stringy exclusion principle), to what does the minimum at $`r=0`$ correspond? To make matters worse, we will show that there is one more configuration of spherical D-brane in $`AdS_5`$ carrying the same energy and angular momentum in the following section.

## 3 Spherical branes in $`AdS_5`$

Existence of static spherical configuration of D3-branes in $`AdS_5`$ can be investigated along the similar lines as in the previous section. Consider embedding a spherical D3-brane wrapping the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_3`$ of the $`AdS_5`$ background (2.1). Just as in the previous section, let us consider the situation where the brane is orbiting along the equator of $`S^5`$ with angular velocity $`\omega `$. The DBI action of such a brane configuration is

$$=\left(T\sqrt{(g_{tt}\omega ^2g_{\mathrm{\Omega }_5\mathrm{\Omega }_5})g_{\mathrm{\Omega }_3\mathrm{\Omega }_3}^3}C_{t\mathrm{\Omega }_3\mathrm{\Omega }_3\mathrm{\Omega }_3}\right)=T\mathrm{\Omega }_3R^4\left(\mathrm{tan}^3\rho \sqrt{\mathrm{sec}^2\rho \omega ^2}\mathrm{tan}^4\rho \right).$$
(3.1)
Just as in the previous section, the angular momentum $`L=/\omega `$ is a conserved quantity, and the canonical energy takes the form

$$E=N\left(\mathrm{sec}\rho \sqrt{\frac{L^2}{N^2}+\mathrm{tan}^6\rho }\mathrm{tan}^4\rho \right),$$
(3.2)
where we have used the fact that $`T\mathrm{\Omega }_3R^4=N`$. This function has essentially the same form as what is illustrated in figure 1. There are local minima at $`\mathrm{tan}\rho =0`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}\rho =\sqrt{\frac{L}{N}}`$ where $`E`$ takes the value (in units of $`1/R`$)

$$E=L.$$
(3.3)
This establishes the fact that there exists a stable configuration of spherical D3-brane embedded in the $`AdS_5`$. These brane configurations, as well as the brane configurations described in the previous section, are illustrated in figure 2.

Several comments are in order regarding the spherical brane configuration in $`AdS_5`$.

* The spherical brane in $`AdS_5`$ couples electrically to the background Ramond-Ramond field and should be thought of as a dielectric brane. The spherical brane in $`S^5`$ couples magnetically and should be thought of as a dimagnetic brane.
* There are two solutions, one at $`\mathrm{tan}\rho =\sqrt{L/N}`$ and the other at $`\mathrm{tan}\rho =0`$, just as in the previous section. All of these brane configuration preserve the same 16 of the 32 supersymmetries of type IIB theory on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$. At first sight this is natural for they saturate the BPS bound. Nonetheless, this is a very non-trivial statement since different patches of the brane world volume are oriented in different directions. The details are explained in appendix B.
* There is an instanton solution describing the tunneling between these two minima, given by

$$\tau =\tau _0\pm \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\rho }{L/N\mathrm{tan}^2\rho }\right),$$
(3.4)
whose action evaluates to

$$S=\frac{N}{2}\left(\frac{L}{N}\mathrm{log}\left(1+\frac{L}{N}\right)\right).$$
(3.5)
The form of this instanton solution333Similar solution describing tunneling between spherical brane in $`S^5`$ and the point-like brane also exists
$$\tau =\tau _0\pm \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{L}{N}\frac{R^2}{r^2}1\right)$$
(3.6) whose action evaluates to
$$S=\frac{N}{2}\left(\frac{L}{N}+\mathrm{log}\left(1\frac{L}{N}\right)\right).$$
(3.7)  is illustrated in figure 3. To fully appreciate the effect of these instanton solutions, as well as the ones on the sphere, one must take the fermion zero modes into account. It turns out that all of these instantons are exactly $`1/4`$ BPS, preserving 8 of the 32 supersymmetries, as will be explained in detail in appendix B. The supersymmetries broken by the instantons will give rise to fermionic zero modes which will suppress the mixing between the two minima via the tunneling effects.
* All of the solutions $`\mathrm{tan}\rho =\sqrt{L/N}`$, $`\mathrm{tan}\rho =0`$, $`r=\sqrt{L/N}R`$, and $`r=0`$ have the same energy and angular momentum quantum numbers.
* Since $`\mathrm{tan}\rho `$ is not bounded, $`L`$ can be much larger than $`N`$ and hence there is no apparent connection between spherical branes in $`AdS_5`$ and the stringy exclusion principle.
* These configurations are special case of the “large brane” configuration discussed in related contexts in . In general, these large brane configurations are time dependent solutions corresponding to the vacuum decay and other related phenomena. When the effect of both angular momentum and the Ramond-Ramond field is taken into account, we find a novel stationary configuration of these large branes.

The mere existence of these brane configuration raises an important question: How does one distinguish between these states from the viewpoint of the boundary theory? Unfortunately, we are unable to offer a complete resolution to this problem. One very concrete and interesting observation that we discuss in the next section is that the spherical branes in $`AdS_5`$ (as opposed to the spherical branes in $`S^5`$ and the point-like brane) turns out to have a concrete interpretation as a classical solution from the field theory point of view.

## 4 Spherical branes in $`AdS_5`$ as classical solutions of SYM

In this section, we will describe a solution to the classical equation of motion of the SYM which is dual of the spherical branes in AdS.

Configuration of spherical branes in $`AdS_5`$ (illustrated in figure 2.III) is such that the flux of RR 5-form in the interior of the spherical D3-brane is less by one unit compared to the exterior. In light of the UV/IR relation of the AdS/CFT correspondence, this suggests that the gauge symmetry is broken from $`SU(N)`$ to $`SU(N1)\times U(1)`$ at low energies. Therefore we should look for a classical configuration involving Higgs expectation values.

Since the D3-branes do not act as a source for the dilaton and the axion, the supergravity back reaction of the spherical D3-branes is trivial in the dilaton/axion sector. Trivial dilaton/axion background corresponds to trivial $`F^2`$ and $`F\stackrel{~}{F}`$ expectation values. The field theory counterpart of the spherical brane is therefore not likely to involve the gauge fields. Furthermore, the fact that the energy (3.3) of the solution we are after does not depend on the coupling constant suggests that the commutator term in the action of the SYM should not play any role. We are therefore left with the Abelian part of the action of the six scalar fields $`\varphi _i`$, $`i=1\mathrm{}6`$.

Theories on $`S^3\times R`$ contain an additional term in the action coming from the positive curvature of $`S^3`$. In $`n`$ dimensions this term is fixed by the conformal invariance to be

$$S=\frac{1}{2g_{YM}^2}d^nx\left((\varphi _1)^2+(\varphi _2)^2+\frac{(n2)}{4(n1)}\stackrel{~}{R}(\varphi _1^2+\varphi _2^2)\right),$$
(4.1)
where $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ are the two scalars we focus on and $`\stackrel{~}{R}`$ is the Ricci curvature which is related to the radius $`R`$ of $`AdS_{n+1}`$ by

$$\stackrel{~}{R}=\frac{(n1)(n2)}{R^2}.$$
(4.2)
Setting $`n=4`$, the action becomes

$$S=\frac{R^3\mathrm{\Omega }_3}{2g_{YM}^2}𝑑t\left(\dot{\varphi }_1^2+\dot{\varphi }_2^2\frac{1}{R^2}(\varphi _1^2+\varphi _2^2)\right).$$
(4.3)
Reparameterizing the fields according to

$$\varphi _1=\sqrt{\frac{g_{YM}^2N}{R^2\mathrm{\Omega }_3}}\eta \mathrm{cos}\theta ,\varphi _2=\sqrt{\frac{g_{YM}^2N}{R^2\mathrm{\Omega }_3}}\eta \mathrm{sin}\theta ,$$
(4.4)
gives

$$S=\frac{NR}{2}𝑑t\left(\dot{\eta }^2+\eta ^2\dot{\theta }^2\frac{\eta ^2}{R^2}\right).$$
(4.5)
Now, consider the ansatz

$$\eta =\mathrm{const}.,\theta =\omega t.$$
(4.6)
The angular momentum $`L=dS/d\omega `$ is conserved, and the conserved energy, in units of $`1/R`$ (see eq.(2)), is

$$E=L\omega =\left(\frac{L^2}{2N\eta ^2}+\frac{N\eta ^2}{2}\right)$$
(4.7)
which is minimized at

$$\eta =\sqrt{\frac{L}{N}}.$$
(4.8)
This constitutes a solution to the equation of motion of the field theory (4.1). The energy associated with this solution is

$$E=L.$$
(4.9)
To properly account for the $`SU(N)`$ field content of the SYM, simply parameterize $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ according to

$$\varphi _1=\sqrt{\frac{g_{YM}^2N}{R^2\mathrm{\Omega }_3}}\widehat{\eta }\mathrm{cos}\theta ,\varphi _2=\sqrt{\frac{g_{YM}^2N}{R^2\mathrm{\Omega }_3}}\widehat{\eta }\mathrm{sin}\theta ,$$
(4.10)
where $`\widehat{\eta }`$ is a traceless diagonal $`N\times N`$ matrix

$$\widehat{\eta }=\sqrt{\frac{N1}{N}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\eta & & & \\ & \frac{\eta }{N1}& & \\ & & \mathrm{}& \\ & & & \frac{\eta }{N1}\end{array}\right).$$
(4.11)
To leading order in $`1/N`$, all but the first diagonal element can be ignored and the analysis reduces to treating $`\varphi _{1,2}`$ as an ordinary scalar field. The subleading $`1/N`$ correction can be thought of as the back reaction of the spherical brane to the background geometry. Taking the full matrix structure of $`\varphi _{1,2}`$ into account does not affect (4.7-4.9) for they commute.

Let us make some comments regarding this solution

* The energy of the classical solution (4.9) is precisely the energy of the spherical brane in $`AdS_5`$ found in equation (3.3).
* The magnitude of the scalar expectation value (4.8) is the same as the SUGRA result if one uses the original UV/IR relation of Maldacena  and not the ones of . This is expected for we are dealing with Higgs expectation values and not gravitational waves as the probes in the bulk.
* The classical solution is invariant under half of the supersymmetries. This can be verified easily by acting on the solution with the supersymmetry transformation rules given in . (Strictly speaking, we have only checked that the solution is invariant with respect to 8 out of 16 Poincare supersymmetries.)

The fact that the classical solution of the SYM shares many properties in common with the spherical brane configuration in $`AdS_5`$ is a good indication that the former is the field theory realization of the latter. There are some subtle differences, however. The potential (4.7) is the field theory counterpart of (3.2). To be more precise, (3.2) is the effective action for the spontaneously broken $`U(1)`$ at large $`\lambda `$ after integrating out the massive W-bosons. Equation (4.7) can simply be thought of as the small $`\lambda `$ limit of the same quantity. To facilitate the comparison, let us re-express (3.2) in terms of $`\eta =\mathrm{tan}\rho `$

$$E=N\left(\sqrt{1+\eta ^2}\sqrt{\frac{L^2}{N^2}+\eta ^6}\eta ^4\right).$$
(4.12)
Potentials (4.7) and (4.12) differ from each other in one very important sense. (See figure 4 for an illustration.) The potential at strong coupling (3.2) has two minima, one at $`\eta =0`$ and the other at $`\eta =\sqrt{L/N}`$. At small coupling, (4.7) has only one minima, at $`\eta =\sqrt{L/N}`$.

What happened? What we have found is an argument based on duality that the minima at $`\eta =0`$ is lifted by $`1/\lambda `$ corrections. When $`\lambda 1`$, semi-classical description of the SYM becomes reliable, but the configuration at $`\eta =0`$ simply does not exist as a solution of the classical equation of motion. It would be very interesting to understand the status of $`\eta =0`$ solution when the quantum effects on the SYM side is taken into account. Studying the quantum correction to (4.7) perturbatively should teach us a lot about this issue.

Unlike the solution at $`\eta =0`$, the solution at $`\eta =\sqrt{L/N}`$ is a robust result. This can be seen in the following way. For large values of $`L/N`$, the spherical brane will grow to have size much greater than the radius of $`AdS_5`$. In , Seiberg and Witten showed that the DBI+CS action of the $`n`$-brane in $`AdS_{n+1}`$ has the following form for $`n>2`$ near the boundary of the AdS (see eq.(3.17) of that paper)

$$S\sqrt{g}\left((\varphi )^2+\frac{n2}{4(n1)}\varphi ^2\stackrel{~}{R}+𝒪(\varphi ^{\frac{2(n4)}{n2}})\right).$$
(4.13)
The form of this action is dictated by the fact that the extension of the metric on the boundary of AdS to the bulk is unique in the neighborhood of the boundary . The leading term in large $`\varphi `$ of (4.13) exactly matches the field theory action (4.1).

## 5 Conclusions

The main goal of this paper is to point out an important subtlety in our current understanding of holography and AdS/CFT correspondence. In AdS/CFT, there is a natural one-to-one correspondence between the chiral primary operators of the boundary theory and the Kaluza-Klein excitations on the bulk. However, there exists a configuration of spherical D-branes embedded in the $`S^5`$ in addition to the Kaluza-Klein excitations, carrying the same quantum numbers as was demonstrated in . In this article, we demonstrated that there is yet another configuration of spherical D-branes, embedded in the $`AdS_5`$, again with the same quantum numbers. The full understanding of holographic principle will require that one understands how each of these spherical branes are realized on the field theory side.

The spherical branes in AdS are much like the long strings  in $`AdS_3\times S^3`$ (See also appendix C). The long strings live on the boundary of $`AdS_3`$, and gives rise to new class of operators of the CFT. The spherical branes in higher AdS appears to play a slightly different role. These branes do not live at the boundary but at some definite radius in the bulk. Unlike the long strings, these branes are completely degenerate in angular momentum and energy with the Kaluza-Klein excitations.

We have not resolved the problem of identifying and distinguishing all of the brane configuration from the field theory side. To partially address this problem, we described a classical solution to the equation of motion of the SYM which shares many of the properties of the spherical branes in $`AdS_5`$. The collapsed brane configurations and the spherical branes in $`S^5`$ do not appear to correspond to a classical solution in a similar manner. Does this also imply that the $`r=0`$ solution of  is also lifted? This depends on whether the $`r=0`$ solution and the $`\rho =0`$ solution can be identified as the same physical state. This is a tricky question because there is a large degeneracy of states that look like figure 2.I especially when multi-particle states are taken into account. More detailed understanding of the holographic map is needed to resolve this issue. Even if the $`\rho =0`$ state and the $`r=0`$ state turns out not to be the same physical state, the fact that the $`\rho =0`$ solution was lifted by $`1/\lambda `$ correction is a strong indication that the $`r=0`$ solution is also lifted.

From the point of view of semi-classical SYM, BPS classical solution is a coherent state of many quanta of chiral excitations. If the identification of spherical branes in $`S^5`$ with the states created by the chiral primary operators turns out to be correct, this suggests that the spherical brane in $`AdS_5`$ is a coherent state of spherical branes in $`S^5`$. It would be very interesting to understand this point better.

In order to proceed further, it appears to be necessary to properly address either the quantum correction of the SYM side or the curvature correction of the supergravity side. This is clearly a non-trivial challenge. The spherical brane configurations in supergravity do exist, and their existence is a prediction about strongly coupled gauge theory via the AdS/CFT correspondence. Learning to resolve these redundancies should teach us a lot about the dynamical aspects of quantum field theories, as well as the holographic principle.

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank O. Aharony, M. Berkooz, J. David, D. Gross, G. Horowitz, J. Maldacena, J. McGreevy, S. Minwalla and J. Polchinski for discussions. The work of A.H. is supported in part by the NSF Grant No. PHY94-07194. The work of S.H. is supported in part by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The work of N.I. is supported in part by the NSF grant No. PHY97-22022.

## Appendix A: Classical Stability and the Gravitational Back Reaction

The general feature that branes of spherical geometry can exist stably in a background of some anti-symmetric tensor field strength is quite similar to the mechanism of dielectric branes discussed by Myers , but there is one critical difference. In AdS, the $`r=0`$ solution is classically stable. In Myers’ analysis, $`r=0`$ solution is classically unstable. In this appendix, we will explain that even in Myers’ example, $`r=0`$ solution is classically stable when the effect of gravitational back reaction of the stress-energy of the background Ramond-Ramond field strength is taken into account.

Myers’ analysis assumes a flat space-time in a background of constant RR 4-form field strength, giving rise to a potential of the form (see equation (87) of .)

$$E(r)=T_2\left(\sqrt{\frac{\alpha ^2N^2}{4}+r^4}Fr^3\right)T_2\left(\frac{N\alpha ^{}}{2}Fr^3+\frac{r^4}{N\alpha ^{}}\right).$$
(A.1)
The relevant energetic consideration comes from the $`r^3`$ term which has a negative coefficient, and the $`r^4`$ term which has a positive coefficient. Since the leading small $`r`$ effect is negative, there is a classical instability (see figure 5).

The essential difference between Myers’ flat space analysis and our analysis in AdS is that in AdS, there is a term in $`E(r)`$ which grows quadratically, thereby dominating over the cubic term which is the leading contribution in Myers’ analysis. Closer examination reveals that the quadratic term arises from the $`r`$ dependence of $`g_{00}`$ which enters into the Nambu-Born-Infeld action. $`g_{00}`$ has non-trivial $`r`$ dependence because the space-time is curved in response to the stress energy generated by the cosmological constant in the AdS space.

However, there is also stress energy associated with the field strength in the system considered by Myers. The stress energy due to the background field strength can certainly give rise to a non-trivial $`r`$ dependence in the background metric. This is the effect of gravitational back reaction of the anti-symmetric form field strength background which was ignored in Myers’ analysis. However, if the effect of such a back reaction enters at quadratic order, it can drastically alter the conclusion regarding the classical instability in the small $`r`$ region.

We claim that this is indeed the case. A complete analysis for that issue in full generality is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead we shall demonstrate that point by considering an example which is sufficiently generic. We consider a version of Myers’ mechanism where a D1-brane is blown up into a spherical D3-brane in the presence of RR 5-form field strength. The reason that this should be considered sufficiently generic is the fact that in string theory, RR 5-form background can only be created using a source that is available in the theory. The object which acts as a source for RR 5-form field strength is the D3-brane. D3-branes are especially convenient because they do not act as a source for the dilaton.444This is not the most general possibility. For example, RR waves with no D-branes sources are excluded from this class of backgrounds.

Consider taking a large number of D3-branes oriented along the 0123 directions, distributed arbitrarily along the 456789 directions. Our ability to construct consistent backgrounds will be parameterized by the degree of freedom in distributing the D3-branes. The general form of backgrounds that can be generated this way takes the form

$$ds^2=f^{1/2}(dt^2+dx_1^2+dx_2^2+dx_3^2)+f^{1/2}(dx_4^2+dx_5^2+dx_6^2+dx_7^2+dx_8^2+dx_9^2)$$
(A.2)
$$F_{0123i}=_if^1$$
(A.3)
where $`f(x_4,x_5,x_6,x_7,x_8,x_9)`$ is an arbitrary harmonic function on the 456789-plane.

At some fixed point in the 456789 plane, the invariant field strength squared is given by

$$F^2=\frac{(_if)^2}{f^{5/2}}.$$
(A.4)
Using only the fact that $`f`$ is a harmonic function ($`^2f=0`$), one finds that at the neighborhood of that point

$$R_{ij}=F^2g_{ij},R_{ab}=F^2g_{ab}$$
(A.5)
where $`i`$ and $`j`$ runs over $`0123`$ and the direction of the gradient $`\stackrel{}{}f`$, whereas $`a`$ and $`b`$ runs over the rest of the directions. Therefore, at any point in the 456789 plane, the local geometry, to quadratic order in geodesic distance, is an $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ with the radius of the order $`R^2=1/F^2`$. This in turn implies that there will always be a quadratic correction to the $`g_{00}`$ component of the metric in the locally inertial frame

$$g_{00}(1+F^2r^2+\mathrm{}).$$
(A.6)
This term will always give rise to a quadratically rising potential in $`E(r)`$

$$E(r)=T_2\left(\sqrt{g_{00}\left(\frac{\alpha ^2N^2}{4}+r^4\right)}Fr^3\right)T_2\left(\frac{N\alpha ^{}}{2}+N\alpha ^{}F^2r^2Fr^3+\mathrm{}\right)$$
(A.7)
which dominates over the $`r^3`$ term at small $`r`$. Because this is the leading effect at small $`r`$, it is inconsistent to ignore the effect of gravitational back reaction. When this effect is properly taken into account, there will never be a classical instability at $`r=0`$ for a freely falling D1-brane. It should be emphasized however that this discussion is valid only locally. In general it might be that the minimum at $`r=0`$ is only a local minimum and not a global minimum.

## Appendix B: Supersymmetry condition for branes in $`AdS_5\times S^5`$

In this appendix, we will analyze the supersymmetric properties of the spherical branes in $`AdS_5`$ and $`S^5`$, as well as the instanton solutions describing the tunneling between the degenerate vacua. The strategy is to simply apply the supersymmetry condition  locally and to count the supersymmetries that are left unbroken globally. Similar strategies have been applied to study the global supersymmetries of baryonic configurations in $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ . The main complication arises from the fact that both the background and the brane are curved. Following , let us introduce

$$ϵ^\pm (x)=ϵ_L(x)\pm iϵ_R(x)$$
(B.1)
where $`ϵ_{L,R}(x)`$ are the left and right handed Majorana-Weyl Killing spinors of type IIB supergravity on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$, with positive spacetime chirality $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{11}=+1`$. The local supersymmetry condition for D3-branes under consideration takes the form

$$\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}(x)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ijkl}ϵ^\pm (x)=iϵ^\pm (x)$$
(B.2)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}(x)`$ is proportional to the volume element of the D3-brane. It is convenient to write the covariantly constant spinors $`ϵ^\pm (x)`$ in the form

$$ϵ^\pm (x)=S^\pm (x)ϵ_0^\pm $$
(B.3)
so that the local supersymmetry condition reads

$$\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}(x)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ijkl}S^\pm (x)ϵ_0^\pm =iS^\pm (x)ϵ_0^\pm .$$
(B.4)
The number of independent spinors $`ϵ_0^\pm `$ satisfying the condition (B.4) for all $`x`$ is the number of unbroken supersymmetries of the brane configuration. It should be emphasized that the condition on $`ϵ_0^\pm `$ at different values of $`x`$ is an overcomplete set, and that there exist any $`ϵ_0^\pm `$ at all that satisfies this requirement is highly non-trivial.

This non-trivial condition is satisfied by the brane configurations illustrated in figure 2. The condition on $`ϵ_0^\pm `$ simplifies to

$$(1\mathrm{\Gamma }_\tau \mathrm{\Gamma }_\varphi )ϵ_0^\pm =0,$$
(B.5)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\tau `$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\varphi `$ are the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ matrices associated with the time direction and the direction of the orbit of the branes in $`S^5`$ respectively. This condition is exactly the same as that for massless particles in ten dimensions, and the same condition applies to all of the brane configurations illustrated in figure 2. In other words, these branes are indistinguishable at the level of supersymmetries, and they all belong to the same supermultiplet as that of the supergraviton.

Instanton solutions describing the tunneling between the spherical and the point like branes also preserve some fraction of supersymmetries. In addition to (B.5), the constraint on supersymmetires imposed by the instanton solution takes the form

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{r\varphi _1\varphi _2\varphi _3}ϵ_0^\pm =ϵ_0^\pm ,$$
(B.6)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_r`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\varphi _1\varphi _2\varphi _3}`$ are the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ matrices associated with the radial and the three-sphere directions. Therefore, these instantons preserve one quarter of the supersymmetries.

In the remainder of this appendix, we will summarize the argument leading to the conclusion that the conditions for supersymmetry are given by (B.5) and (B.6). To proceed, we need an explicit expression for the $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}`$ and the $`S^\pm (x)`$. Let us begin by choosing an explicit coordinates for $`AdS_5\times S^5`$. We will continue to use the metric (2.1) and parameterize the 3-sphere and the 5-sphere according to

$`d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2`$ $`=`$ $`d\theta _1^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _1d\theta _2^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _2d\theta _3^2`$ (B.7)
$`d\mathrm{\Omega }_5^2`$ $`=`$ $`d\theta _{\overline{5}}^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{5}}d\theta _{\overline{4}}^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{5}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{4}}d\theta _{\overline{3}}^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{5}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{4}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{3}}d\theta _{\overline{2}}^2`$ (B.8)
$`+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{5}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{4}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{3}}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\overline{2}}d\theta _{\overline{1}}^2.`$
We will generally use barred indecies to refer to $`S^5`$ coordinates and unbarred indecies to refer to $`AdS_5`$ coordinates.

We will follow the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ matrix conventions of :

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_m=\sigma _2\gamma _m^{AdS}1_4,\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{m}}=\sigma _11_4\gamma _{\overline{m}}^S,\gamma =\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{1}\overline{2}\overline{3}\overline{4}\overline{5}}=\sigma _11_41_4,$$
(B.9)
where $`m=0,1,2,3,4`$ and $`\overline{m}=\overline{1},\overline{2},\overline{3},\overline{4},\overline{5}`$. An explicit form of the Killing spinors in $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ can be obtained by combining the results of  and

$$S^\pm (x)=\sqrt{\mathrm{sec}\rho }\left(\mathrm{cos}\frac{\rho }{2}\pm i\widehat{x}^\alpha \gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha \mathrm{sin}\frac{\rho }{2}\right)e^{\pm i\frac{\tau }{2}\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }_0}e^{\pm \frac{i}{2}\theta _{\overline{5}}\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}}}\underset{m=4}{\overset{1}{}}\left(e^{\frac{1}{2}\theta _{\overline{m}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{m},\overline{m}+\overline{1}}}\right),$$
(B.10)
where $`\widehat{x}_i`$ are defined following

$`\widehat{x}_1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta _2\mathrm{sin}\theta _3`$
$`\widehat{x}_2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta _2\mathrm{cos}\theta _3`$
$`\widehat{x}_3`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _1\mathrm{cos}\theta _2`$
$`\widehat{x}_4`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _1.`$ (B.11)
### Appendix B.1: Supersymmetry of the spherical branes

We are now ready to analyze the unbroken supersymmetries of the spherical D3-branes in $`AdS_5`$. Let us take $`\theta _{\overline{5}}`$ to be the direction of orbit along the $`S^5`$, more specifically the other angles $`(\theta _{\overline{4}},\theta _{\overline{3}},\theta _{\overline{2}})`$ set to be zero, and $`\theta _{\overline{1}}`$ to be $`0`$ or $`\pi `$, to cover the orbit globally by two patches. Then the volume form of the spherical D3-brane takes the form of

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{R^4(\mathrm{sec}^2\rho d\tau +\omega d\theta _{\overline{5}})}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sec}^2\rho \omega ^2}}d\theta _3d\theta _2d\theta _1.$$
(B.12)
Thus $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ijkl}`$ is given by

$$\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ijkl}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sec}^2\rho \omega ^2}}\left(\mathrm{sec}\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_0+\omega \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}}\right)\left(\widehat{x}_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_{234}+\widehat{x}_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{134}\widehat{x}_3\mathrm{\Gamma }_{124}+\widehat{x}_4\mathrm{\Gamma }_{123}\right).$$
(B.13)
Now for the point-like solution at $`\rho =0`$, $`\omega =1`$ (figure 2.I), and on the $`\theta _{\overline{1}}=0`$ branch, it is easy to show that (B.4) implies

$$(1\mathrm{\Gamma }_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}})ϵ_0^\pm =0.$$
(B.14)
On the $`\theta _{\overline{1}}=\pi `$ branch, $`\omega =1`$ since the orientation of the orbit is reversed.

For the finite size solution at $`\mathrm{tan}\rho =\sqrt{L/N}`$, $`\omega =1`$ (figure 2.III), after straightforward manipulation of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ matrices, (B.4) also reduces to (B.14). The same remark on the two branches of orbit is applicable in this case as well. Note that the condition $`\omega =1`$ (or $`\omega =1`$) is actually necessary for preserving the global supersymmetries.

The unbroken supersymmetry of spherical branes in $`S^5`$ (figure 2.II) can be analyzed in a similar manner. We will again take $`\theta _{\overline{5}}`$ to be the direction of orbit of the center of mass. Then the volume form takes the form of

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{R^4(d\tau +\omega (1r^2/R^2)d\varphi )}{\sqrt{1(1r^2/R^2)\omega ^2}}d\theta _{\overline{3}}d\theta _{\overline{2}}d\theta _{\overline{1}},$$
(B.15)
where $`\mathrm{tan}\varphi =\mathrm{tan}\theta _{\overline{5}}\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\overline{4}}`$, $`r=R\mathrm{sin}\theta _{\overline{5}}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{\overline{4}}`$, and the brane is sitting at the origin $`\rho =0`$ in $`AdS_5`$. Thus we have

$$\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ijkl}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1(1r^2/R^2)\omega ^2}}\left\{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0+\omega \left(\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\overline{4}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}}\frac{r}{R\mathrm{tan}\theta _{\overline{5}}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{4}}\right)\right\}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{3}\overline{2}\overline{1}}.$$
(B.16)
After some manipulation, once again (B.4) simplifies to

$$(1\mathrm{\Gamma }_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}})ϵ_0^\pm =0.$$
(B.17)
### Appendix B.2: Supersymmetry of the instantons

Now we proceed to the analysis of unbroken supersymmetries of instantons on the spherical D3-branes in $`AdS_5`$. The analysis goes through in much the same way as in the previous cases. The only difference comes from the time-dependence on the radial direction which will be reflected in the time-like direction of the worldvolume of the spherical D3-branes. As a result $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ijkl}`$ takes the form of

$$\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ijkl}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sec}^2\rho \dot{\rho }^2\mathrm{sec}^2\rho \omega ^2}}\left(\mathrm{sec}\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_0+\dot{\rho }\mathrm{sec}\rho \widehat{x}^\alpha \mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha +\omega \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}}\right)\left(\widehat{x}^\beta \mathrm{\Gamma }_\beta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{1234}\right).$$
(B.18)
After a little computation, one finds the global supersymmetry conditions to be

$`\left(1\mathrm{\Gamma }_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}}\right)ϵ_0^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (B.19)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{1234}ϵ_0^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_0^\pm ,`$ (B.20)
$`\omega i\dot{\rho }\mathrm{tan}\rho 1`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (B.21)
Using the relation between $`\omega `$ and $`L`$, it is easy to show that (B.21) is the instanton equation (in Euclidean time)

$$\dot{\rho }=\mathrm{tan}\rho \frac{\mathrm{tan}^2\rho L/N}{\mathrm{tan}^4\rho +L/N}$$
(B.22)
whose solution is (3.4).

Similarly on the spherical D3-branes in $`S^5`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ijkl}`$ is given by

$`\mathrm{\Omega }^{ijkl}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ijkl}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1\frac{(\dot{r}/R)^2}{1(r/R)^2}(1(r/R)^2)\omega ^2}}}\{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{r}/R}{1(r/R)^2}}(\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\overline{5}}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{\overline{4}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}}+\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\overline{4}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{4}})`$ (B.23)
$`+\omega (\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\overline{4}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}}{\displaystyle \frac{r}{R\mathrm{tan}\theta _{\overline{5}}}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{4}})\}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{3}\overline{2}\overline{1}}.`$
This time, the condition for preservation of global supersymmetry turns out to be

$`\left(1\mathrm{\Gamma }_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{5}}\right)ϵ_0^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (B.24)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\overline{1}\overline{2}\overline{3}\overline{4}}ϵ_0^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_0^\pm ,`$ (B.25)
$`\omega \pm i{\displaystyle \frac{r}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{r}/R}{1(r/R)^2}}1`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (B.26)
Once again one can easily verify that the last condition (B.26) is precisely the instanton equation

$$\pm \frac{\dot{r}}{R}=\frac{r}{R}\left\{\frac{N}{L}\left(\frac{r}{R}\right)^21\right\}$$
(B.27)
whose solution is (3.6).

## Appendix C: Generalizations to other AdS

In this article, we concentrated mainly on spherical branes in $`AdS_5\times S^5`$. This can be generalized immediately to $`AdS_7\times S^4`$ and $`AdS_4\times S^7`$. Following the argument presented in section 3, one obtains an expression for the energy as a function of the angular momentum $`L`$ and the radius $`\rho `$

* M2 in $`AdS_4\times S^7`$

$$E(\rho ,L)=N\left(\mathrm{sec}\rho \sqrt{\frac{L^2}{4N^2}+\mathrm{tan}^4\rho }\mathrm{tan}^3\rho \right)$$
(C.1)
* M5 in $`AdS_7\times S^7`$

$$E(\rho ,L)=N\left(\mathrm{sec}\rho \sqrt{\frac{4L^2}{N^2}+\mathrm{tan}^{10}\rho }\mathrm{tan}^6\rho \right).$$
(C.2)

These potentials essentially behave like (3.2) illustrated in figure 1. These are the electric counterparts to the spherical magnetic dipoles in $`AdS_4\times S^7`$ and $`AdS_7\times S^4`$ described in .

The case of $`AdS_3\times S^3`$ is somewhat different. Consider a D1-string probe in the $`AdS_3\times S^3\times T^4`$ background with $`Q_1`$ and $`Q_5`$ units of electric and magnetic Ramond-Ramond 3-form fluxes, respectively. The potential energy then takes the form

$$E(\rho ,L)=Q_5\left(\mathrm{sec}\rho \sqrt{\left(\frac{L^2}{Q_5^2}\right)+\mathrm{tan}^2\rho }\mathrm{tan}^2\rho \right).$$
(C.3)
The potential has one global minimum at $`\rho =0`$. There is an unstable stationary point at $`\rho =\pi /2`$ (see figure 6). This is precisely the long string of . At the special value of angular momentum $`L=Q_5`$, the potential becomes completely flat and the long and the short strings become degenerate . The fact that this happens at $`L=Q_5`$ rather than $`L=Q_1Q_5`$ indicates that this effect is unrelated to the stringy exclusion principle of $`AdS_3\times S^3.`$

Spherical D-strings in $`S^3`$ can also be analyzed in similar manner. The potential is found to take the form

$$E=\sqrt{\frac{Q_5^2r^2}{R^4}+\frac{(L^2Q_5r^2/R^2)^2}{R^2r^2}}$$
(C.4)
which for $`L=Q_5`$ becomes flat and degenerate.

## Note Added

While this paper was in preparation, we learned that similar results are being considered by Grisaru, Myers, and Tafjord .


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# References

August 2000

OU-HET 360

BPS D-branes after Tachyon Condensation

Takao Suyama 111e-mail address : suyama@funpth.phys.sci.osaka-u.ac.jp

Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University,

Toyonaka, Osaka, 560-0043, Japan

Abstract

We construct an effective action describing brane-antibrane system containing $`N`$ D-branes and $`N`$ $`\overline{\text{D}}`$-branes. BPS equations for remaining D-branes after tachyon condensation are derived and their properties are investigated. The value of the D-brane tension and the number of brane bound states are discussed.

1. Introduction

The importance of tachyon in string theory has been shown in recent researches. The presence of the tachyon indicates the instability of brane-antibrane systems  and this system decays into a vacuum . This is explained that the tension of the brane-antibrane system is cancelled by the minimum value of the tachyon potential $`V(T)`$, and the occurance of such cancellation is examined by using string field theory . The study of the tachyon condensation also provides new objects in string theory; non-BPS D-branes . To classify these objects as well as the ordinary BPS D-branes K-theory is introduced into string theory and has been intensively studied .

In our previous paper , we discussed BPS D-branes after tachyon condensation in terms of a spacetime effective theory. D-branes were described as classical solutions of some BPS equations, and such description could deal with both paralell branes and intersecting branes. In addition, the form of the tachyon potential $`V(T)`$ was determined by requiring the stability of the classical solutions.

We will generalize in this paper the effective theory of the brane-antibrane system to the one which describes the system containing $`N`$ Dp-branes and $`N`$ $`\overline{\text{D}}`$p-branes. This is a non-Abelian gauge theory coupled to the tachyon field, and this theory captures several properties of the brane system which cannot be represented by our old one.

This paper is organized as follows. We briefly review our previous work in section 2. The action of the multiple brane-antibrane system is constructed and the supersymmetry of this theory is discussed in section 3. The properties of the solutions of BPS equations and the fluctuations around them are investigated in section 4, and the asymptotic form of the tachyon field is determined in section 5. Section 6 is devoted to discussions.

2. BPS branes after tachyon condensation

The brane-antibrane system has shown to be unstable. The instability is due to the tachyonic mode coming from the string stretched between brane and antibrane. The calculations using string field theory show that the tension of the system is completely cancelled after tachyon condensation . This means that the brane-antibrane system will decay into some stable state. The resulting stable configuration is either a vacuum or lower dimensional branes, and the latter can be classified by K-theory .

In our previous paper , we discussed the BPS D-branes which remain after tachyon condensation by using a spacetime action. The action of D9-$`\overline{\text{D}}`$9 system is the following,

$$S=\frac{1}{g^2}d^{10}x\left\{\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^{(r)}F^{(r)\mu \nu }+\frac{i}{2}\overline{\psi }^{(r)}\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu _\mu \psi ^{(r)}|D_\mu T|^2V(T)\right\},$$
(1)
where $`D_\mu T=_\mu TiA_\mu ^{(r)}T`$. $`A_\mu ^{(r)}`$ and $`\psi ^{(r)}`$ are ten-dimensional $`U(1)`$ gauge multiplet on the brane-antibrane system (so called relative $`U(1)`$), and $`T`$ is the tachyon field. There also exists a charged massless fermion which is ignored here because it is irrelevant for the following discussions. The action of Dp-$`\overline{\text{D}}`$p system can be obtained from (1) by dimensional reduction.

According to the arguments in string theory, this system should contain a stable solution which preserves some of the supersymmetries although the action (1) is not supersymmetric. Now let us consider the following “supersymmetry” transformations,

$`\delta A_\mu ^{(r)}={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{ϵ}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu \psi `$ (2)
$`\delta \psi ^{(r)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }^{(r)}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(|T|^2\zeta )\mathrm{\Gamma }^1\mathrm{\Gamma }^2ϵ`$ (3)
$`\delta T=0`$ (4)
where $`\zeta >0`$. The action $`S`$ is not invariant under the above transformations, and one of the conditions for $`\delta S=0`$ is

$$D_1T+iD_2T=0.$$
(5)
$`\delta \psi =0`$ for general $`ϵ`$ means

$$F_{12}^{(r)}+|T|^2\zeta =0.$$
(6)
Thus we conclude that the solutions of (5) and (6) are the BPS solutions preserving 16 supercharges. (5)(6) are the Nielsen-Olesen vortex equations  and the solutions can be interpreted as BPS D-branes of codimension two.

3. Non-Abelian generalization

In this section we will construct an effective action of the brane-antibrane system which consists of $`N`$ D9-branes and $`N`$ $`\overline{\text{D}}`$9-branes. This system is described by a gauge theory with gauge group $`SU(N)\times SU(N)\times U(1)`$. The relevant fields on the branes are the followings: $`A_\mu ^{(1)},\psi ^{(1)}`$ are $`SU(N)`$ gauge multiplet on D9-branes and $`A_\mu ^{(2)},\psi ^{(2)}`$ are $`SU(N)`$ gauge multiplet on $`\overline{\text{D}}`$9-branes. $`A_\mu ^{(r)},\psi ^{(r)}`$ are the relative $`U(1)`$ multiplet. $`T`$ is the tachyon filed in $`(\text{N},\overline{\text{N}})`$ representation of $`SU(N)\times SU(N)`$ and this has the unit $`U(1)`$ charge.

The action of this system is

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}{\displaystyle }d^{10}x[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\text{tr}F_{\mu \nu }^{(1)}F^{(1)\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\text{tr}\overline{\psi }^{(1)}\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu D_\mu \psi ^{(1)}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\text{tr}F_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}F^{(2)\mu \nu }`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\text{tr}\overline{\psi }^{(2)}\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu D_\mu \psi ^{(2)}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }^{(r)}F^{(r)\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{\psi }^{(r)}\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu _\mu \psi ^{(r)}\text{tr}D_\mu T^{}D^\mu TV(T)].`$
(7)
The field strengths and the covariant derivatives are defined as follows.

$`F_{\mu \nu }^{(\alpha )}=_\mu A_\nu ^{(\alpha )}_\nu A_\mu ^{(\alpha )}i[A_\mu ^{(\alpha )},A_\nu ^{(\alpha )}](\alpha =1,2)`$ (8)
$`F_{\mu \nu }^{(r)}=_\mu A_\nu ^{(r)}_\nu A_\mu ^{(r)}`$ (9)
$`D_\mu \psi ^{(\alpha )}=_\mu \psi ^{(\alpha )}i[A_\mu ^{(\alpha )},\psi ^{(\alpha )}]`$ (10)
$`D_\mu T=_\mu TiA_\mu ^{(1)}T+iTA_\mu ^{(2)}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{N}}}A_\mu ^{(r)}T`$ (11)
The action (7) is completely determined by the gauge invariance and the Lorentz invariance except for the tachyon potential $`V(T)`$. As in the $`N=1`$ case, there exists a massless fermion in $`(\text{N},\overline{\text{N}})`$ representation of $`SU(N)\times SU(N)`$ and the unit $`U(1)`$ charge, which is also ignored as in our previous paper. We have used the following normalization of the generators $`t_a`$ of $`SU(N)`$.

$$\text{tr}t_at_b=\delta _{ab}$$
(12)
Then let us consider the “supersymmetry” transformations.

$`\delta A_\mu ^{(\alpha )}={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{ϵ}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu \psi ^{(\alpha )}`$ (13)
$`\delta A_\mu ^{(r)}={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{ϵ}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu \psi ^{(r)}`$ (14)
$`\delta \psi ^{(1)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }^{(1)}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(TT^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}\text{tr}TT^{}1)\mathrm{\Gamma }^1\mathrm{\Gamma }^2ϵ`$ (15)
$`\delta \psi ^{(2)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }ϵ`$ (16)
$`\delta \psi ^{(r)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }^{(r)}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\sqrt{N}}}(\text{tr}TT^{}N\zeta )\mathrm{\Gamma }^1\mathrm{\Gamma }^2ϵ`$ (17)
$`\delta T=0`$ (18)
The variation of the action (7) is

$`\delta S={\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}{\displaystyle }d^{10}x{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\text{tr}[D_\mu TT^{}\overline{\psi }^{(1)}(i\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^1\mathrm{\Gamma }^2)ϵ`$
$`iT^{}D_\mu T\overline{\psi }^{(2)}\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu ϵ+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}D_\mu TT^{}\overline{\psi }^{(r)}(i\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^1\mathrm{\Gamma }^2)ϵ+h.c.].`$ (19)
Therefore the conditions for $`\delta S=0`$ are

$`D_1T+iD_2T=0`$ (20)
$`D_iT=0(i=0,3,\mathrm{},9)`$ (21)
$`T\psi ^{(2)}=0.`$ (22)
Under the conditions (20)-(22), the action $`S`$ is invariant for general $`ϵ`$. When we would like to discuss classical solutions which preserve only part of 16 supercharges, the above conditions are relaxed in a suitable way.

4. Gauge symmetry on the D-branes

We will investigate in this section classical solutions which preserve 16 supercharges. In particular we will focus on the solutions corresponding to D-branes of codimension two. For such solutions we assume that they depend only on the coordinates $`x^1`$ and $`x^2`$, and $`A_{1,2}^{(\alpha )},A_{1,2}^{(r)}`$ are the only nonzero components of the gauge fields. Then $`\delta \psi ^{(\alpha )}=0,\delta \psi ^{(r)}=0`$ mean

$`F_{12}^{(1)}+TT^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}\text{tr}TT^{}1=0`$ (23)
$`F_{12}^{(2)}=0`$ (24)
$`F_{12}^{(r)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}(\text{tr}TT^{}N\zeta )=0.`$ (25)
We set $`A_\mu ^{(2)}=0`$ and define the $`U(N)`$ gauge fields

$$A_\mu =A_\mu ^{(1)}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}A_\mu ^{(r)}1.$$
(26)
Then the eqs.(23)(25) become

$$F_{12}+TT^{}\zeta 1=0.$$
(27)
This is a natural generalization of the Nielsen-Olesen vortex equation (5)(6).

The energy of the solutions of eqs.(20)(27) can be calculated as follows.

$`E={\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}{\displaystyle }d^{10}x[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{tr}(F_{12}+TT^{}\zeta 1)^2+\text{tr}|D_1T+iD_2T|^2+\zeta \text{tr}F_{12}`$
$`+V(T){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{tr}(TT^{}\zeta 1)^2]`$ (28)
Thus the solutions are stable topologically if

$$V(T)=\frac{1}{2}\text{tr}(TT^{}\zeta 1)^2$$
(29)
Now we will consider the properties of the solutions of eqs. (20)(27). For simpliciy, let $`A_{1,2}`$ and $`T`$ be diagonal matrices.

$`A_\mu =\text{diag}(A_{(1)\mu },\mathrm{},A_{(N)\mu })`$ (30)
$`T=\text{diag}(T_{(1)},\mathrm{},T_{(N)})`$ (31)
Then eqs.(20)(27) become $`N`$ sets of the ordinary vortex equations (5)(6). In this case the energy is

$$E=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{\zeta }{g^2}d^{10}xF_{(i)12}.$$
(32)
The position of the vortex with respect to $`F_{(i)12}`$ is determined as the point where $`T_{(i)}=0`$. Therefore the number $`n(x)`$ of D-branes at some point $`x`$ is

$$n(x)=N\text{rank}(T(x)).$$
(33)
This means that the solutions of eqs.(20)(27) can describe coincident D-branes as well as separated D-branes.

Now we will discuss the fluctuations aruond the classical solutions. Suppose that $`T`$ has the form

$$T=\text{diag}(0,\mathrm{},0,T_{n+1},\mathrm{},T_N)$$
(34)
at some point $`x`$. Consider the fluctuations of $`A_\mu ^{(2)},\psi ^{(2)},A_\mu ^{(r)},\psi ^{(r)}`$,

$`A_\mu ^{(2)}=A_\mu ^{(2)c}+a_\mu ^{(2)}`$ (35)
$`A_\mu ^{(r)}=A_\mu ^{(r)c}+a_\mu ^{(r)}`$ (36)
$`\psi ^{(2)}=\phi ^{(2)}`$ (37)
$`\psi ^{(r)}=\phi ^{(r)}`$ (38)
where the superscript $`c`$ indicates the classical solution of eqs.(20)(27). For the dynamics of the fluctuations to be supersymmetric, the conditions (20)-(22) have to be satisfied, that is,

$`T(a_\mu ^{(2)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}a_\mu ^{(r)}1)=0`$ (39)
$`T\phi ^{(2)}=0.`$ (40)
Let us define the $`U(N)`$ gauge multiplet

$`a_\mu =a_\mu ^{(2)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}a_\mu ^{(r)}1`$ (41)
$`\phi =\phi ^{(2)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}\phi 1.`$ (42)
Then the conditions (39)(40) imply

$$a_\mu =\left(\begin{array}{cc}a_{n,\mu }& 0\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right),\phi =\left(\begin{array}{cc}\phi _n& 0\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right),$$
(43)
where $`a_{n,\mu },\phi _n`$ are $`n\times n`$ hermitian matrices. This indicates that $`U(n)`$ gauge symmetry appears on the $`n`$ coincident D-branes. In fact, they are the fields in the super Yang-Mills theory with the ordinary supersymmetry transformations. If $`T`$ has the generic form, we have to set $`a_\mu =0,\phi =0`$ to satisfy the conditions (39)(40), thus the fluctuations are restricted on the branes.

We have not mentioned the fluctuations $`a_\mu ^{(1)}`$ of $`A_\mu ^{(1)}`$. If we include them, the action contains a term $`\text{tr}[A_\mu ^{(1)c},a_\nu ^{(1)}]^2`$. This indicates that in general $`a_\mu ^{(1)}`$ become massive and can be ignored. However it may be possible for them to become massless, for example, at the brane intersection, if we consider such brane systems.

5. Asymptotic behavior of the tachyon field

In this section we turn to the solutions which preserve part of 16 supercharges.

First we will consider the solutions corresponding to intersecting branes. For example, there is an intersecting brane configuration which preserves 8 supercharges; two D7-branes extended along (01256789) and (03456789). The remaining supersymmetries correspond to the parameter $`ϵ`$ satisfying

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^1\mathrm{\Gamma }^2ϵ=\mathrm{\Gamma }^3\mathrm{\Gamma }^4ϵ.$$
(44)
In this case the conditions for $`\delta S=0`$ under the transformations (13)-(18) are modified as follows.

$`D_1T+iD_2T=0`$ (45)
$`D_3T+iD_4T=0`$ (46)
$`D_iT=0(i=0,5,\mathrm{},9)`$ (47)
$`T\psi ^{(2)}=0`$ (48)
We assume, as in the previous section, that $`A_\mu ^{(2)}=0,A_i^{(1)}=0,A_i^{(r)}=0`$ and the solutions depend only on the coordinates $`x^1,x^2,x^3,x^4`$. Then $`\delta \psi ^{(1)}=0,\delta \psi ^{(r)}=0`$ mean

$`F_{12}^{(1)}+F_{34}^{(1)}+TT^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}\text{tr}TT^{}=0`$ (49)
$`F_{13}^{(1)}F_{24}^{(1)}=0`$ (50)
$`F_{14}^{(1)}+F_{23}^{(1)}=0`$ (51)
$`F_{12}^{(r)}+F_{34}^{(1)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}(\text{tr}TT^{}N\zeta )=0`$ (52)
$`F_{13}^{(r)}F_{24}^{(r)}=0`$ (53)
$`F_{14}^{(r)}+F_{23}^{(r)}=0.`$ (54)
In terms of the $`U(N)`$ gauge fields (26) the above equations can be rewritten as

$`F_{12}+F_{34}+TT^{}\zeta 1=0`$ (55)
$`F_{13}F_{24}=0`$ (56)
$`F_{14}+F_{23}=0.`$ (57)
Eqs.(45)(46)(55)-(57) are the equations which describe the intersecting branes. One can show that the solutions of them are stable topologically when one takes $`V(T)=\frac{1}{2}\text{tr}(TT^{}\zeta 1)^2`$.

We introduce the complex coordinates.

$$z^k=x^{2k1}+ix^{2k}(k=1,2)$$
(58)
Then the BPS equations become as follows,

$`D_{\overline{a}}T=0`$ (59)
$`F_{\overline{a}\overline{b}}=0`$ (60)
$`ig^{a\overline{b}}F_{a\overline{b}}+TT^{}\zeta 1=0,`$ (61)
where $`g_{a\overline{b}}`$ is the metric in the complex coordinates; its nonzero components are $`g_{z^1\overline{z}^1}=g_{z^2\overline{z}^2}=\frac{1}{2}`$.

Similar equations can be derived for the solutions which preserve only 4 supercharges. Consider an intersecting brane configuration which contains D7-branes extended along (01234789),(03456789) and (01256789). The conditions for the remaining supersymmetries in this case are

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^1\mathrm{\Gamma }^2ϵ=\mathrm{\Gamma }^3\mathrm{\Gamma }^4ϵ=\mathrm{\Gamma }^5\mathrm{\Gamma }^6ϵ.$$
(62)
The BPS equations are formally the same as that for D7-D7’ system except that in this case $`a,b`$ take $`z^1,z^2,z^3`$.

Eqs.(59)(60) can be easily solved. From (60) $`A_{\overline{a}}`$ are determined to be

$$A_{\overline{a}}=iV_{\overline{a}}V^1,$$
(63)
where $`V`$ is an $`N\times N`$ complex matrix. Let $`T=VT_0`$. Then (59) becomes

$$_{\overline{a}}T_0=0.$$
(64)
Thus $`T_0`$ is just a holomorphic matrix.

Before discussing eq.(61), we would like to fix the boundary condition at spatial infinity. It should be imposed that $`V(T)=0`$ at infinity, which implies that $`T`$ becomes proportional to a unitary matrix. We take the polar decomposition $`V=UH`$ and set $`T_0=\sqrt{\zeta }1`$, where U is unitary and H is hermitian. Then the boundary condition means that $`H1`$ at infinity.

We define $`R=V^{}V=H^2`$. Then eq.(61) can be rewritten in terms of $`R`$.

$$g^{a\overline{b}}_{\overline{b}}(R^1_aR)=\zeta (R1)$$
(65)
The solutions of this equation in $`N=1`$ case are discussed in . $`U`$ will be determined by requiring the regularity of the solutions.

To the intersecting brane configuration including three kinds of D7-branes considered above, we can add D3-branes extended along (0789) without breaking more supersymmetries. Therefore eqs.(59)-(61) are expected to have the corresponding solutions and they will have nonzero third Chern character. From the boundary condition,

$$A_\mu iU_\mu U^{}.$$
(66)
The third Chern character can be calculated by the following expression.

$$_{𝐑^6}\text{tr}F^3=\frac{i}{10}_{𝐑^6}\text{tr}U𝑑U^{}𝑑U𝑑U^{}𝑑U𝑑U^{}$$
(67)
Let us discuss the special case $`N=4`$, in which $`U`$ can be explicitly constructed,

$$U=\frac{1}{r}\gamma _mx_m(m=1,\mathrm{},6),$$
(68)
where $`\gamma _m`$ are the lower-left parts of the $`SO(6)`$ gamma matrices,

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_m=\left(\begin{array}{cc}& \gamma _m^{}\\ \gamma _m& \end{array}\right)$$
(69)
and $`r^2=(x^1)^2+\mathrm{}+(x^6)^2`$. This gives the asymptotic form of the gauge fields whose third Chern character is integrated to be unity, corresponding to the single D3-brane on the intersecting D7-branes.

The asymptotic behavior of the tachyon field is also determined in this case as follows.

$$T\frac{\sqrt{\zeta }}{r}\gamma _mx_m$$
(70)
This is what has been discussed in the literature .

6. Discussions

In the previous section, we derived the equations (59)-(61) which described intersecting brane systems. Thus, by quantizing the collective coordinates of the solutions, the number of their bound states may be able to be determined, as will be explained below, if we assume their existence. In fact solving the BPS equations is not an easy task. However the number can be deduced from a few properties of the solutions and supersymmetry.

The BPS equations are not scale invariant. Therefore all of the bosonic moduli of the solutions will correspond to the positions of them and the scale of them will be fixed. Since there remains some part of supersymmetry, the number $`F`$ of fermionic partners of the bosonic moduli will be a multiple of the number $`B`$ of the bosonic moduli. The low energy dynamics of the brane system will be described by quantum mechanics whose target space is the moduli space of the solutions, and in particular, the number of bound states will be determined by counting the number of ground states of quantum mechanics.

Consider first D7-D7’ system discussed in the previous section. In this case, it is expected that $`B=4`$ and $`F=8`$. This implies that the number of the bound states is $`2^{\frac{8}{2}}=16`$. Since D7-D7’ system is a T-dual of D4-D0 system, this result is appropriate . Next consider D7-D7’-D7”-D3 system. In this case $`B=6,F=6`$ and the number of the bound states is $`2^{\frac{6}{2}}=8`$. This is the value expected from the counting of a black hole entropy  because this system is a T-dual of D4-D4’-D4”-D0 system.

In our discussions, the tachyon potential $`V(T)`$ is determined by requiring the stability of the brane solutions. Thus we can calculate the tensions of the remaining branes as well as that of the original brane-antibrane system, and check whether our model reproduces the correct values. It is natural to set $`g^2=(2\pi \alpha ^{})^2\tau _9`$ and $`\zeta =\frac{1}{2\alpha ^{}}`$, where $`\tau _9`$ is the tension of the BPS D9-brane. Then the tension of the original brane-antibrane system is

$$V(0)=\frac{\zeta ^2}{2g^2}Tr(1)=\frac{\pi ^2}{4}N2\tau _9,$$
(71)
and the tension of the resulting codimension-two brane is

$$\frac{2\pi \zeta }{g^2}=\pi \tau _7.$$
(72)
These do not match the correct values. Probably this is because we have considered the action (7), which includes only the leading terms in order of $`\alpha ^{}`$. Therefore if one can construct an effective action containing all $`\alpha ^{}`$ corrections, then we will be able to determine the form of the tachyon potential $`V(T)`$ by the same way as explained in this paper, and the model will provide the correct values for the D-brane tensions. The string field theory calculation  seems to imply that the string loop corrections are not important, and our classical arguments will be enough to do the job.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank H.Itoyama, T.Matsuo, K.Murakami, K.Hashimoto for valuable discussions. This work is supported in part by JSPS Reseach Fellowships.