NS-branes in 5d brane world models

Abstract

We study codimension-1 brane solutions of the 5d brane world models compactified on $S_1 / \mathbb{Z}_2$. In string theoretical setup they suggest that the background branes located at orbifold fixed points should be NS-branes (in the five dimensional sense), rather than D-branes. Indeed, the existence of the background NS-branes is indispensable to obtain flat geometry $M_4 \times S_1 / \mathbb{Z}_2$ where $M_4$ represents the 4d Minkowski spacetime, and without these branes the 5d metric becomes singular everywhere. This result is very reminiscent of the $(p+3)$d effective string theory \cite{1} where the NS-NS type $p$-brane is indispensable to obtain a flat geometry $R_2$ or $R_2 /\mathbb{Z}_n$ on the transverse dimensions. Without this NS-NS type $p$-brane the 2d transverse space becomes a pin-shaped singular space. The correspondence between these two theories leads us to a conjecture that the whole flat backgrounds of the string theory inherently invovle the NS-branes implicitly in their ansatz, and hence the true background $p$-branes immanent in our spacetime may be NS-branes, instead of D-branes. We argue that this result can have a significant consequence in the context of the cosmological constant problem.