Brane Splitting via Quantum Tunneling

TL;DR

This paper investigates a quantum tunneling process in eleven-dimensional supergravity, revealing instantons that suggest brane splitting and challenging dual field theory interpretations, with implications for various branes and gravitational instantons.

Contribution

It introduces a new interpretation of a two-centred AdS_7 x S^4 solution as an instanton indicating brane splitting, highlighting novel quantum superpositions in supergravity.

Findings

Identifies an instanton signaling M5 brane throat splitting.

Suggests instantons for other branes in higher-dimensional supergravity.

Examines the applicability of counterterm subtraction in gravitational instantons.

Abstract

We study the two-centred AdS_7 x S^4 solution of eleven-dimensional supergravity using the Euclidean path-integral approach, and find that it can be interpreted as an instanton, signalling the splitting of the throat of the M5 brane. The instanton is interpreted as indicating a coherent superposition of the quantum states corresponding to classically distinct solutions. This is a surprising result since it leads, through the AdS/CFT correspondence, to contradictory implications for the dual (2,0) superconformal field theory on the M5 brane. We also argue that similar instantons should exist for other branes in ten- and eleven-dimensional supergravity. The counterterm subtraction technique for gravitational instantons, which arose from the AdS/CFT correspondence, is examined in terms of its applicability to our results. Connections are also made to the work of Maldacena et al on anti-de Sitter fragmentation.