arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Jeremy Michelson.
A supersymmetric Lagrangian used to study D-particle probes in a D6-brane background is exactly soluble. We present an analysis of the classical and quantum mechanics of this theory, including classical trajectories in the bosonic theory, and the exact quantum spectrum and wavefunctions, including both bound and unbound states.
The Schwarzschild, Schwarzschild-AdS, and Schwarzschild-de Sitter solutions all admit freely acting discrete involutions which commute with the continuous symmetries of the spacetimes. Intuitively, these involutions correspond to the antipodal map of the corresponding spacetimes. In analogy with the ordinary de Sitter example, this allows us to construct new vacua by performing a Mottola-Allen transform on the modes associated with the Hartle-Hawking, or Euclidean, vacuum. These vacua are the `alpha'-vacua for these black holes. The causal structure of a typical black hole may ameliorate certain difficulties which are encountered in the case of de Sitter alpha-vacua. For Schwarzschild-AdS black holes, a Bogoliubov transformation which mixes operators of the two boundary CFT's provides a construction of the dual CFT alpha-states. Finally, we analyze the thermal properties of these vacua.
We investigate backgrounds of Type IIB string theory with null singularities and their duals proposed in hep-th/0602107. The dual theory is a deformed N=4 Yang-Mills theory in 3+1 dimensions with couplings dependent on a light-like direction. We concentrate on backgrounds which become AdS_5 x S^5 at early and late times and where the string coupling is bounded, vanishing at the singularity. Our main conclusion is that in these cases the dual gauge theory is nonsingular. We show this by arguing that there exists a complete set of gauge invariant observables in the dual gauge theory whose correlation functions are nonsingular at all times. The two-point correlator for some operators calculated in the gauge theory does not agree with the result from the bulk supergravity solution. However, the bulk calculation is invalid near the singularity where corrections to the supergravity approximation become important. We also obtain pp-waves which are suitable Penrose limits of this general class of solutions, and construct the Matrix Membrane theory which describes these pp-wave backgrounds.
We construct a family of solutions in IIB supergravity theory. These are time dependent or depend on a light-like coordinate and can be thought of as deformations of AdS_5 x S^5. Several of the solutions have singularities. The light-like solutions preserve 8 supersymmetries. We argue that these solutions are dual to the N=4 gauge theory in a 3+1 dimensional spacetime with a metric and a gauge coupling that is varying with time or the light-like direction respectively. This identification allows us to map the question of singularity resolution to the dual gauge theory.
We construct Matrix Membrane theory in pp wave backgrounds that have a null linear dilaton in Type IIB string theory. Such backgrounds can serve as toy models of big bang cosmologies. At late times only abelian degrees of freedom survive, and if the Kaluza-Klein modes along one of the directions of the membrane decouple, standard perturbative strings emerge. Near the ``big bang'', non-abelian configurations of fuzzy ellipsoids are present, as in the Type IIA theories. A generic configuration of these shrink to zero volume at late times. However, the Kaluza Klein modes (which can be thought of as states of (p,q) strings in the original IIB theory) can be generically produced in pairs in both pp wave and flat backgrounds in the presence of time dependence. Indeed, if we require that at late times the theory evolves to the perturbative string vacuum, these modes must be prepared in a squeezed state with a thermal distribution at early times.
We study a spherical antimembrane in the eleven dimensional pp wave. In this background, a single antimembrane breaks all the supersymmetries because its dipole is misaligned with the background flux. Using the BMN matrix theory we compute the one-loop potential for the antimembrane. Then we put the antimembrane in the field produced by a source spherical membrane and compute the velocity-dependent part of the interaction between them on both the supergravity side and the BMN matrix theory side. Despite the aforementioned nonsupersymmetry of the antimembrane, it is found that the results on the two sides completely agree.
We find pp wave solutions in string theory with null-like linear dilatons. These provide toy models of big bang cosmologies. We formulate Matrix String Theory in these backgrounds. Near the big bang ``singularity'', the string theory becomes strongly coupled but the Yang-Mills description of the matrix string is weakly coupled. The presence of a second length scale allows us to focus on a specific class of non-abelian configurations, viz. fuzzy cylinders, for a suitable regime of parameters. We show that, for a class of pp waves, fuzzy cylinders which start out big at early times dynamically shrink into usual strings at sufficiently late times.
The Matrix Theory that has been proposed for various pp wave backgrounds is discussed. Particular emphasis is on the existence of novel nontrivial supersymmetric solutions of the Matrix Theory. These correspond to branes of various shapes (ellipsoidal, paraboloidal, and possibly hyperboloidal) that are unexpected from previous studies of branes in pp wave geometries.
The behaviour of matrix string theory in the background of a type IIA pp wave at small string coupling, g_s << 1, is determined by the combination M g_s where M is a dimensionless parameter proportional to the strength of the Ramond-Ramond background. For M g_s << 1, the matrix string theory is conventional; only the degrees of freedom in the Cartan subalgebra contribute, and the theory reduces to copies of the perturbative string. For M g_s >> 1, the theory admits degenerate vacua representing fundamental strings blown up into fuzzy spheres with nonzero lightcone momenta. We determine the spectrum of small fluctuations around these vacua. Around such a vacuum all N-squared degrees of freedom are excited with comparable energies. The spectrum of masses has a spacing which is independent of the radius of the fuzzy sphere, in agreement with expected behaviour of continuum giant gravitons. Furthermore, for fuzzy spheres characterized by reducible representations of SU(2) and vanishing Wilson lines, the boundary conditions on the field are characterized by a set of continuous angles which shows that generically the blown up strings do not ``close''.
A pp-wave solution to 11-dimensional supergravity is given with precisely 26 supercharges. Its uniqueness and the absence of 11-dimensional pp-waves which preserve (precisely) 28 or 30 supercharges is discussed. Compactification on a spacelike circle gives a IIA configuration with all 26 of the supercharges. For this compactification, D0 brane charge does not appear in the supersymmetry algebra. Indeed, the 26 supercharge IIA background does not admit any supersymmetric D-branes. In an appendix, a 28 supercharge IIB pp-wave is presented along with its supersymmetry algebra.
The maximally supersymmetric type IIB pp-wave is compactified on spatial circles, with and without an auxiliary rotational twist. All spatial circles of constant radius are identified. Without the twist, an S$^1$ compactification can preserve 24, 20 or 16 supercharges. $T^2$ compactifications can preserve 20, 18 or 16 supercharges; $T^3$ compactifications can preserve 18 or 16 supercharges and higher compactifications preserve 16 supercharges. The worldsheet theory of this background is discussed. The T-dual and decompactified type IIA and M-theoretic solutions which preserve 24 supercharges are given. Some comments are made regarding the AdS parent and the CFT description.
We propose the leading couplings, in an alpha' expansion, of noncommutative D-branes to RR potentials in a constant NSNS B-field for an arbitrary choice of noncommutative parameter. The proposal is motivated by some string amplitude computations. The zero momentum couplings are topological in nature and involve Elliott's noncommutative Chern character. The finite momentum couplings are given by smearing the zero momentum operators along an open Wilson line. Comparisons between the RR couplings in different descriptions lead to a better understanding of the field redefinitions between gauge field variables (the Seiberg-Witten map) and help constrain alpha' corrections. In particular we recover the Seiberg-Witten map conjectured by one of the authors in hep-th/0011125. We also discuss the dynamics of the transverse scalar fields and find evidence for a new derivative-driven dielectric effect.
We investigate N=4 noncommutative super Yang-Mills (SYM) theory. We compute the one-loop four gauge boson scattering amplitude on parallel Dp-branes, and find the corresponding contribution to the noncommutative SYM one-loop action in a momentum expansion. The result is somewhat surprising. We find that while the planar diagram can be written using the usual *-product, the contributions from nonplanar diagrams in general involve additional structure beyond the *-product, arising from the nontrivial worldsheet correlations surviving the field theory limit. To each nonplanar diagram, depending on the number n of external vertex operator insertions on each boundary, there is a corresponding *_n n-ary operation. We further find that it is no longer possible to write down an off-shell gauge invariant one-loop effective action using the noncommutative field strength defined at tree-level.
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 nonabelian scalar fields on the branes.
We give a detailed discussion of the disk amplitudes with one closed string insertion, which we used to construct the supergravity couplings of noncommutative D-branes to the RR potentials, given in hep-th/0104139. We prove the inclusion of Elliott's formula, the integer-valued modification of the noncommutative Chern character, to all orders in the gauge field. We also give a detailed comparison between the form of the result in which Elliott's formula is manifest, and the form expressed in Matrix model variables.
Motivated by recent discussions of IR/UV mixing in noncommutative field theories, we perform a detailed analysis of the non-planar amplitudes of the bosonic open string in the presence of an external B-field at the one-loop level. We carefully isolate, at the string theory level, the contribution which is responsible for the IR/UV behavior in the field theory limit. We show that it is a pure open string effect by deriving it from the factorization of the one-loop amplitude into the disk amplitudes of intermediate open string insertions. We suggest that it is natural to understand IR/UV mixing as the creation of intermediate ``stretched strings''.
This contribution to the proceedings of the 1999 NATO ASI on Quantum Geometry at Akureyri, Iceland, is based on notes of lectures given by A. Strominger. Topics include N-particle conformal quantum mechanics, extended superconformal quantum mechanics and multi-black hole moduli spaces.
N-particle quantum mechanics described by a sigma model with an N-dimensional target space with torsion is considered. It is shown that an SL(2,R) conformal symmetry exists if and only if the geometry admits a homothetic Killing vector $D^a$ whose associated one-form $D_a$ is closed. Further, the SL(2,R) can always be extended to Osp(1|2) superconformal symmetry, with a suitable choice of torsion, by the addition of N real fermions. Extension to SU(1,1|1) requires a complex structure I and a holomorphic U(1) isometry $D^a I_a{^b} \partial_b$. Conditions for extension to the superconformal group D(2,1;α), which involve a triplet of complex structures and SU(2) x SU(2) isometries, are derived. Examples are given.