Branes from Unstable Systems of Branes

TL;DR

This paper explores how various branes in string and M-theory can be modeled as topological solitons in unstable brane systems, providing a unified classification and new insights into BPS and non-BPS states.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive classification of branes as topological solitons and introduces a conjectured non-BPS M10-brane as a foundation for brane descent in M-theory.

Findings

Classification of branes as topological solitons in unstable systems

Description of type IIB NS-NS p-branes via NS9 brane pairs

Proposal of a non-BPS M10-brane for M-theory

Abstract

We discuss various aspects of the description of branes as topological solitons in unstable brane systems of higher dimensions. We first describe a classification of all the possible realisations of branes of M and type II theories as topological solitons of a brane-antibrane system. We then present a description of type IIB NS-NS p-branes in terms of topological solitons in systems of spacetime-filling NS9, anti-NS9 pairs and discuss the implications of these constructions in the description of BPS and non-BPS states in the strongly coupled Heterotic SO(32) theory. We finally present briefly the construction of a conjectured spacetime-filling non-BPS M10-brane, starting point for a brane descent construction of the branes of M-theory.