The many faces of brane-flux annihilation

TL;DR

This paper explores the decay mechanisms of fluxes in string theory involving D-branes, extending previous models to include various Dp branes and analyzing their metastability in specific geometries.

Contribution

It generalizes the understanding of brane-flux annihilation to Dp branes with p<7, detailing decay channels and polarization effects in flux backgrounds.

Findings

RR flux decay involves Dp to D(p+2) polarization.

NSNS flux decay involves Dp to NS5 or KK5 polarization.

Anti-Dp branes are metastable in certain toroidal throat geometries.

Abstract

Fluxes can decay via the nucleation of Brown-Teitelboim bubbles, but when the decaying fluxes induce D-brane charges this process must be accompanied with an annihilation of D-branes. This occurs via dynamics inside the bubble wall as was well described for (anti-)D3 branes branes annihilating against 3-form fluxes. In this paper we extend this to the other Dp branes with p smaller than seven. Generically there are two decay channels: one for the RR flux and one for the NSNS flux. The RR channel is accompanied by brane annihilation that can be understood from the Dp branes polarising into D(p+2) branes, whereas the NSNS channel corresponds to Dp branes polarising into NS5 branes or KK5 branes. We illustrate this with the decay of antibranes probing local toroidal throat geometries obtained from T-duality of the D6 solution in massive type IIA. We show that anti-Dp branes are metastable against annihilation in these backgrounds, at least at the probe level.