Inner brane: A D3-brane in the Nappi-Witten model from an inner group automorphism

TL;DR

This paper constructs a space-filling D-brane in the Nappi-Witten model using an inner automorphism, preserving half of the affine Kac-Moody symmetry and linking algebraic automorphisms to geometric brane configurations.

Contribution

It provides an explicit example of a boundary reflection matrix derived from an inner automorphism in the Nappi-Witten model, connecting algebraic symmetry to geometric D-brane configurations.

Findings

Constructed a field-dependent reflection matrix for open strings.

Preserved half of the affine Kac-Moody symmetry at the boundary.

Linked boundary conditions to background gauge field configurations.

Abstract

WZW models are abstract conformal field theories with an infinite dimensional symmetry which accounts for their integrability, and at the same time they have a sigma model description of closed string propagation on group manifolds which, in turn, endows the models with an intuitive geometric meaning. We exploit this dual algebraic and geometric property of WZW models to construct an explicit example of a field-dependent reflection matrix for open-strings in Nappi-Witten model. Demanding the momentum outflow at the boundary to be zero determines a certain combination of the left and right chiral currents at the boundary. This same reflection matrix is obtained algebraically from an inner automorphism, giving rise to a space-filling D-brane. Half of the infinite dimensional affine Kac-Moody symmetry present in the closed-string theory is preserved by this unique combination of the left and the right chiral currents. The OPEs of these boundary currents are computed explicitly and they are showed to obey the same current algebra as those of the closed-string chiral currents. Different choices of the inner automorphisms correspond to different background gauge field configurations. Only those B-field configurations, and the corresponding D-branes, that preserve the diagonal part of the infinite dimensional chiral algebras are allowed. In this way the existence of the D-branes in curved spaces is further constrained by the underlying symmetry of the ambient spacetime.