From p-branes to fluxbranes and back

TL;DR

This paper explores the relationship between fluxbranes and p-branes, showing how fluxbranes can be realized as limits of brane-antibrane systems and analyzing their evolution and stability post-nucleation.

Contribution

It introduces a new perspective on fluxbrane realization via brane-antibrane limits and investigates their dynamic evolution and potential instabilities.

Findings

Fluxbranes can be modeled as limits of brane-antibrane configurations.

Kaluza-Klein fluxbranes relax by forming brane-antibrane pairs or spherical branes.

Certain flux tubes with specific dilaton couplings may exhibit runaway instabilities.

Abstract

In this note we study aspects of the interplay between fluxbranes and p-branes. We describe how a fluxbrane can be physically realized as a limit of a brane-antibrane configuration, in a manner similar to the way a uniform electric field appears in between the plates of a capacitor. We also study the evolution of a fluxbrane after nucleation of p-branes. We find that Kaluza-Klein fluxbranes do relax by forming brane-antibrane pairs or spherical branes, but we also find that for fluxtubes with dilaton coupling in a different range, the field strength does not relax, instead it becomes stronger after each nucleation bounce. We speculate on a possible runaway instability of such fluxtubes an an eventual breakdown of their classical description.