Confinement on the Brane

TL;DR

This paper investigates a proposed non-perturbative confinement mechanism explaining the fate of gauge groups on annihilating D-brane pairs, analyzing its validity across different regimes and explicitly demonstrating it in specific cases.

Contribution

It provides a detailed examination of the confinement mechanism from multiple perspectives, including explicit demonstration in the D2-anti-D2 case and analysis in the weak coupling limit.

Findings

Fundamental string emerges as confined electric flux at annihilation end

Explicit demonstration of confinement in D2-anti-D2 case in M-theory limit

Analysis of confinement occurrence in weakly coupled string theory

Abstract

A non-perturbative confinement mechanism has been proposed to explain the fate of the unbroken gauge group on the world-volume of annihilating D-brane-anti-D-brane pairs. In this paper, we examine this phenomenon closely from several different perspectives. Existence of the confinement mechanism is most easily seen by noticing that the fundamental string emerges as the confined electric flux string at the end of the annihilation process. After reviewing the confinement proposal in general, this is shown explicitly in the D2-anti-D2 case in the M-theory limit. Finally, we address the crucial issue of whether and how confinement occurs in the weakly coupled limit of string theory.