Remarks on the instability of black Dp-branes

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability and thermodynamic properties of black Dp-branes, revealing bounds on their temperature and charge product for p ≤ 5, and analyzing their classical and quantum stability, including decay channels.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the bounds on black Dp-brane parameters and their stability, highlighting differences for p ≤ 5 and p=6, and discusses decay mechanisms.

Findings

For p ≤ 4, two black Dp-branes exist at fixed charge and temperature, with one stable and one unstable.

For p=5, only one black D5-brane exists at each temperature below maximum.

For p=6, no temperature bound exists, allowing continuous black D6-brane solutions.

Abstract

We show that for black D$p$-branes having charge $Q$ and Hawking temperature $T$, the product $QT^{7-p}$ is bounded from above for $p\leq 5$ and is unbounded for $p=6$. While the maximum occurs at some finite value of a parameter for $p \leq 4$, it occurs at infinity of the parameter for $p=5$. As a consequence, for fixed charge, there are two black D$p$-branes (for $p\leq 4$) at any given temperature less than its maximum value, and when the temperature is maximum there is one black D$p$-brane. For $p=5$, there is only one black D5-brane at a given temperature less than its maximum value, whereas, for $p=6$, since there is no bound for the temperature, there is always a black D6-brane solution at a given temperature. Of the two black D$p$-branes (for $p\leq 4$), one is large which is shown to be thermodynamically unstable and the other is small which is stable. But for $p=5,6$, the black D$p$-branes are always thermodynamically unstable. The stable, small black D$p$-brane, however, under certain conditions, can become unstable quantum mechanically and decay either to a BPS D$p$-brane or to a Kaluza-Klein "bubble of nothing" through closed string tachyon condensation. The small D5, D6 branes, although classically unstable, have the same fate under similar conditions.