arXiv subjects

Washington Taylor

Publications and source records attributed to Washington Taylor.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2003

Abelian and nonabelian vector field effective actions from string field theory

The leading terms in the tree-level effective action for the massless fields of the bosonic open string are calculated by integrating out all massive fields in Witten's cubic string field theory. In both the abelian and nonabelian theories, field redefinitions make it possible to express the effective action in terms of the conventional field strength. The resulting actions reproduce the leading terms in the abelian and nonabelian Born-Infeld theories, and include (covariant) derivative corrections.

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arXiv2003

A perturbative analysis of tachyon condensation

Tachyon condensation in the open bosonic string is analyzed using a perturbative expansion of the tachyon potential around the unstable D25-brane vacuum. Using the leading terms in the tachyon potential, Padé approximants can apparently give the energy of the stable vacuum to arbitrarily good accuracy. Level-truncation approximations up to level 10 for the coefficients in the tachyon potential are extrapolated to higher levels and used to find approximants for the full potential. At level 14 and above, the resulting approximants give an energy less than -1 in units of the D25-brane tension, in agreement with recent level-truncation results by Gaiotto and Rastelli. The extrapolated energy continues to decrease below -1 until reaching a minimum near level 26, after which the energy turns around and begins to approach -1 from below. Within the accuracy of this method, these results are completely consistent with an energy which approaches -1 as the level of truncation is taken to be arbitrarily large.

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arXiv2003

Lectures on D-branes, tachyon condensation, and string field theory

These lectures provide an introduction to the subject of tachyon condensation in the open bosonic string. The problem of tachyon condensation is first described in the context of the low-energy Yang-Mills description of a system of multiple D-branes, and then using the language of string field theory. An introduction is given to Witten's cubic open bosonic string field theory. The Sen conjectures on tachyon condensation in open bosonic string field theory are introduced, and evidence confirming these conjectures is reviewed.

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arXiv2002

Perturbative diagrams in string field theory

A general algorithm is presented which gives a closed-form expression for an arbitrary perturbative diagram of cubic string field theory at any loop order. For any diagram, the resulting expression is given by an integral of a function of several infinite matrices, each built from a finite number of blocks containing the Neumann coefficients of Witten's 3-string vertex. The closed-form expression for any diagram can be approximated by level truncation on oscillator level, giving a computation involving finite size matrices. Some simple tree and loop diagrams are worked out as examples of this approach.

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arXiv2001

The singular geometry of the sliver

We consider "sliver" states which act as projection operators in the matter star product of Witten's cubic string field theory. These sliver states, which might be associated with Dirichlet p-branes, are not finite norm states in the matter string Hilbert space. We describe the singularities of these states, and demonstrate that the sliver states are composed of strings having singular geometric features. These singularities take a particularly simple form in the zero slope limit alpha' -> 0, where the star algebra factorizes into a product of the algebra of functions on space-time and the noncommutative star product of fields associated with higher string modes. An analogy to the sliver geometry suggests a natural mechanism for describing closed string states in open string field theory.

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arXiv2001

Split string field theory II

We describe the ghost sector of cubic string field theory in terms of degrees of freedom on the two halves of a split string. In particular, we represent a class of pure ghost BRST operators as operators on the space of half-string functionals. These BRST operators were postulated by Rastelli, Sen, and Zwiebach to give a description of cubic string field theory in the closed string vacuum arising from condensation of a D25-brane in the original tachyonic theory. We find a class of solutions for the ghost equations of motion using the pure ghost BRST operators. We find a vanishing action for these solutions, and discuss possible interpretations of this result. The form of the solutions we find in the pure ghost theory suggests an analogous class of solutions in the original theory on the D25-brane with BRST operator Q_B coupling the matter and ghost sectors.

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arXiv2001

Split string field theory I

We describe projection operators in the matter sector of Witten's cubic string field theory using modes on the right and left halves of the string. These projection operators represent a step towards an analytic solution of the equations of motion of the full string field theory, and can be used to construct Dp-brane solutions of the string field theory when the BRST operator Q is taken to be pure ghost, as suggested in the recent conjecture by Rastelli, Sen and Zwiebach. We show that a family of solutions related to the sliver state are rank one projection operators on the appropriate space of half-string functionals, and we construct higher rank projection operators corresponding to configurations of multiple D-branes.

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arXiv2001

Gauge Invariance and Tachyon Condensation in Open String Field Theory

The gauge invariance of open string field theory is considered from the point of view of level truncation, and applications to the tachyon condensation problem are discussed. We show that the region of validity of Feynman-Siegel gauge can be accurately determined using the level truncation method. We then show that singularities previously found in the tachyon effective potential are gauge artifacts arising from the boundary of the region of validity of Feynman-Siegel gauge. The problem of finding the stable vacuum and tachyon potential without fixing Feynman-Siegel gauge is addressed.

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arXiv2001

Open string field theory without open strings

Witten's cubic open string field theory is expanded around the perturbatively stable vacuum, including all scalar fields at levels 0, 2, 4 and 6. The (approximate) BRST cohomology of the theory is computed, giving strong evidence for the absence of physical open string states in this vacuum.

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arXiv2001

M(atrix) Theory: Matrix Quantum Mechanics as a Fundamental Theory

A self-contained review is given of the matrix model of M-theory. The introductory part of the review is intended to be accessible to the general reader. M-theory is an eleven-dimensional quantum theory of gravity which is believed to underlie all superstring theories. This is the only candidate at present for a theory of fundamental physics which reconciles gravity and quantum field theory in a potentially realistic fashion. Evidence for the existence of M-theory is still only circumstantial---no complete background-independent formulation of the theory yet exists. Matrix theory was first developed as a regularized theory of a supersymmetric quantum membrane. More recently, the theory appeared in a different guise as the discrete light-cone quantization of M-theory in flat space. These two approaches to matrix theory are described in detail and compared. It is shown that matrix theory is a well-defined quantum theory which reduces to a supersymmetric theory of gravity at low energies. Although the fundamental degrees of freedom of matrix theory are essentially pointlike, it is shown that higher-dimensional fluctuating objects (branes) arise through the nonabelian structure of the matrix degrees of freedom. The problem of formulating matrix theory in a general space-time background is discussed, and the connections between matrix theory and other related models are reviewed.

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arXiv2000

Mass generation from tachyon condensation for vector fields on D-branes

The level truncation approach to string field theory is used to study the zero-momentum action for vector excitations on a bosonic D-brane which has been annihilated by tachyon condensation. It is shown that in the true vacuum the translation zero modes associated with transverse scalars on the D-brane are lifted by spontaneous generation of mass terms. Similarly, the U(1) gauge field on the brane develops a nonzero mass term.

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arXiv2000

D-particle polarizations with multipole moments of higher-dimensional branes

We study the polarization states of the D0-brane in type IIA string theory. In addition to states with angular momentum and magnetic dipole moments, there are polarization states of a single D0-brane with nonzero D2-brane dipole and magnetic H-dipole moments, as well as quadrupole and higher moments of various charges. These fundamental moments of the D0-brane polarization states can be determined directly from the linearized couplings of background fields to the D0-brane world-volume fermions. These couplings determine the long range supergravity fields produced by a general polarization state, which typically have non-zero values for all the bosonic fields of type IIA supergravity. We demonstrate the precise cancellation between spin-spin and magnetic dipole-dipole interactions and an analogous cancellation between 3-form and H-field dipole-dipole interactions for a pair of D0-branes. The first of these cancellations follows from the fact that spinning D0-brane states have gyromagnetic ratio g = 1, and the second follows from the fact that the ratio between the 3-form and H-field dipole moments is also 1 in natural units. Both of these relationships can be seen immediately from the couplings in the D0-brane world-volume action.

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arXiv2000

D2-branes in B fields

This note focuses on the coupling of a type IIA D2-brane to a background B field. It is shown that the D0-brane charge arising from the integral over the D2-brane of the pullback of the B field is cancelled by bulk contributions, for a compact D2-brane wrapping a homotopically trivial cycle in space-time. In M-theory this cancellation is a straightforward consequence of momentum conservation. This result resolves a puzzle recently posed by Bachas, Douglas and Schweigert related to the quantization of R-R charges on stable spherical D2-branes on the group manifold SU(2).

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arXiv2000

Level truncation and the tachyon in open bosonic string field theory

The tachyonic instability of the open bosonic string is analyzed using the level truncation approach to string field theory. We have calculated all terms in the cubic action of the string field theory describing zero-momentum interactions of up to level 20 between scalars of level 10 or less. These results are used to study the tachyon effective potential and the nonperturbative stable vacuum. We find that the energy gap between the unstable and stable vacua converges much more quickly than the coefficients of the effective tachyon potential. By including fields up to level 10, 99.91% of the energy from the bosonic D-brane tension is cancelled in the nonperturbative stable vacuum. It appears that the perturbative expansion of the effective tachyon potential around the unstable vacuum has a small but finite radius of convergence. We find evidence for a critical point in the tachyon effective potential at a small negative value of the tachyon field corresponding to this radius of convergence. We study the branch structure of the effective potential in the vicinity of this point and speculate that the tachyon effective potential is globally nonnegative.

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arXiv2000

D-brane effective field theory from string field theory

Open string field theory is considered as a tool for deriving the effective action for the massless or tachyonic fields living on D-branes. Some simple calculations are performed in open bosonic string field theory which validate this approach. The level truncation method is used to calculate successive approximations to the quartic terms ϕ^4, (A^μA_μ)^2 and [A_μ, A_ν]^2 for the zero momentum tachyon and gauge field on one or many bosonic D-branes. We find that the level truncation method converges for these terms within 2-4% when all massive fields up to level 20 are integrated out, although the convergence is slower than exponential. We discuss the possibility of extending this work to determine the structure of the nonabelian Born-Infeld theory describing the gauge field on a system of many parallel bosonic or supersymmetric D-branes. We also describe a brane configuration in which tachyon condensation arises in both the gauge theory and string field theory pictures. This provides a natural connection between recent work of Sen and Zwiebach on tachyon condensation in string field theory and unstable vacua in super Yang-Mills and Born-Infeld field theory.

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arXiv2000

The M(atrix) model of M-theory

These lecture notes give a pedagogical and (mostly) self-contained review of some basic aspects of the Matrix model of M-theory. The derivations of the model as a regularized supermembrane theory and as the discrete light-cone quantization of M-theory are presented. The construction of M-theory objects from matrices is described, and gravitational interactions between these objects are derived using Yang-Mills perturbation theory. Generalizations of the model to compact and curved space-times are discussed, and the current status of the theory is reviewed.

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arXiv1999

Multiple Dp-branes in Weak Background Fields

We find the terms in the nonabelian world-volume action of a system of many Dp-branes which describe the leading coupling to all type II supergravity background fields. These results are found by T-dualizing earlier results for D0-branes, which in turn were determined from calculations of the M(atrix) theory description of the supercurrent of 11D supergravity. Our results are compatible with earlier results on the supersymmetric Born-Infeld action for a single D-brane in a general background and with Tseytlin's symmetrized trace proposal for extending the abelian Born-Infeld action to a nonabelian theory. In the case p = 3, the operators we find on the D-brane world-volume are closely related to those which couple to supergravity fields in the AdS_5 * S^5 IIB supergravity background. This gives an explicit construction, including normalization, of some of the operators used in the celebrated AdS/CFT correspondence for 3-branes. We also discuss the S-duality of the action in the case p = 3, finding that the S-duality of the action determines how certain operators in the 4D N = 4 SYM theory transform under S-duality. These S-duality results give some new insight into the puzzle of the transverse 5-brane in M(atrix) theory.

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arXiv1999

Absorption of dilaton partial waves by D3-branes

We calculate the leading term in the low-energy absorption cross section for an arbitrary partial wave of the dilaton field by a stack of many coincident D3-branes. We find that it precisely reproduces the semiclassical absorption cross section of a 3-brane geometry, including all numerical factors. The crucial ingredient in making the correspondence is the identification of the precise operators on the D3-brane world-volume which couple to the dilaton field and all its derivatives. The needed operators are related through T-duality and the IIA/M-theory correspondence to the recently determined M(atrix) theory expressions for multipole moments of the 11D supercurrent. These operators have a characteristic symmetrized trace structure which plays a key combinatorial role in the analysis for the higher partial waves. The results presented here give new evidence for an infinite family of non-renormalization theorems which are believed to exist for two-point functions in ${\cal N} = 4$ gauge theory in four dimensions.

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