Time-Symmetric Rolling Tachyon Profile

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a time-symmetric rolling tachyon solution in open string field theory, constructing it algebraically at sixth order and numerically evaluating its profile, revealing dependence on deformation strength and renormalization parameters.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed algebraic and numerical analysis of a time-symmetric rolling tachyon solution, including regularization and parameter dependence.

Findings

Tachyon profile depends nontrivially on deformation strength.

Regularization ensures finiteness of all examined quantities.

Perturbation series convergence may depend on renormalization constants.

Abstract

We investigate the tachyon profile of a time-symmetric rolling tachyon solution to open string field theory. We algebraically construct the solution of [arXiv:0707.4472] at 6th order in the marginal parameter, and numerically evaluate the corresponding tachyon profile as well as the action and several correlation functions containing the equation of motion. We find that the marginal operator's singular self-OPE is properly regularized and all quantities we examine are finite. In contrast to the widely studied time-asymmetric case, the solution depends nontrivially on the strength of the deformation parameter. For example, we find that the number and period of oscillations of the tachyon field changes as the strength of the marginal deformation is increased. We use the recent renormalization scheme of [arXiv:1412.3466], which contains two free parameters. At finite deformation parameter the tachyon profile depends on these parameters, while when the deformation parameter is small, the solution becomes insensitive to them and behaves like previously studied time-asymmetric rolling tachyon solutions. We also show that convergence of perturbation series is not as straightforward as in the time-asymmetric case with regular OPE, and find evidence that it may depend on the renormalization constants.