Electrified BPS Giants: BPS configurations on Giant Gravitons with Static Electric Field

TL;DR

This paper explores BPS configurations of D3-branes in a plane-wave background, focusing on solutions with static electric fields, including deformations of giant gravitons and fundamental strings, revealing new stable brane and string states.

Contribution

It constructs and analyzes 1/4 BPS solutions with static electric fields on giant gravitons, introducing novel deformations and configurations such as BIGGons and electric field-induced shape changes.

Findings

Deformation of giant gravitons into squashed spheres under electric fields

Formation of fundamental strings from point-like branes in electric backgrounds

Identification of stable 1/4 BPS solutions with electric field effects

Abstract

We consider D3-brane action in the maximally supersymmetric type IIB plane-wave background. Upon fixing the light-cone gauge, we obtain the light-cone Hamiltonian which is manifestly supersymmetric. The 1/2 BPS solutions of this theory (solutions which preserve 16 supercharges) are either of the form of spherical three branes, the giant gravitons, or zero size point like branes. We then construct specific classes of 1/4 BPS solutions of this theory in which static electric field on the brane is turned on. These solutions are deformations about either of the two 1/2 BPS solutions. In particular, we study in some detail 1/4 BPS configurations with electric dipole on the three sphere giant, i.e. BIons on the giant gravitons, which we hence call BIGGons. We also study BPS configurations corresponding to turning on a background uniform constant electric field. As a result of this background electric field the three sphere giant is deformed to squashed sphere, while the zero size point like branes turn into circular or straight fundamental strings in the plane-wave background, with their tension equal to the background electric field.