# Rolling Near the Tachyon Vacuum

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how an unstable D-brane decays to the tachyon vacuum in a linear dilaton background, revealing that the vacuum can support hidden fluctuations as nonperturbative effects within open string field theory.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that the tachyon vacuum can support fluctuations when viewed as nonperturbative effects, clarifying the decay process of D-branes in this setting.

## Key findings

- Tachyon vacuum supports fluctuations as nonperturbative effects
- D-brane decay to vacuum occurs without tachyon matter remnants
- Open string field theory formalism reveals hidden fluctuations

## Abstract

In a linear dilaton background, it has been argued that an unstable D-brane can decay to the tachyon vacuum without leaving behind a remnant of tachyon matter. Here we address the question of how the D-brane can decay to the tachyon vacuum when the tachyon vacuum does not support physical fluctuations. Using the formalism of open string field theory, we find that the tachyon vacuum {\it can} support fluctuations provided they are "hidden" as nonperturbative effects behind a pure gauge asymptotic series.