Brane-Antibrane Constructions

TL;DR

This paper explores various intersecting brane-antibrane configurations in type II string theories, analyzing their spectra, stability, decay modes, and dualities, revealing stable non-BPS states and their physical properties.

Contribution

It introduces new non-BPS brane configurations, analyzes their spectra and stability, and employs T-duality to connect these to ALE singularities, expanding understanding of non-supersymmetric string states.

Findings

Identification of tachyon-free, stable non-BPS states.

Explicit spectra derived for various brane configurations.

Mapping of brane setups to ALE singularities via T-duality.

Abstract

In type II string theories, we examine intersecting brane constructions containing brane-antibrane pairs suspended between 5-branes, and more general non-BPS constructions. The tree-level spectra are obtained in each case. We identify various models with distinct physics: parallel brane-antibrane pairs, adjacent pairs, non-adjacent pairs, and configurations which break all supersymmetry even though any pair of branes preserves some supersymmetry. In each case we examine the possible decay modes. Some of these configurations turn out to be tachyon-free, stable non-BPS states. We use T-duality to map some of our brane constructions to brane-antibrane pairs at ALE singularities. This enables us to explicitly derive the spectra by the analogue of the quiver construction, and to compute the sign of the brane-antibrane force in each case.