Instantons of Type IIB Supergravity in Ten Dimensions

TL;DR

This paper develops SO(10) symmetric instanton solutions in Type IIB supergravity, proposing a candidate for the D=--1 brane's semiclassical approximation, with an improved interpretation over previous solutions.

Contribution

It introduces a new family of instanton solutions with a refined interpretation as tunneling amplitudes, differing from earlier solutions by having twice the action.

Findings

The instanton solution admits an interpretation as a tunneling amplitude.

The action of the instanton is twice that of previous solutions.

The paper discusses the relation between magnetic and electric pictures, and properties of the solution in an instanton frame.

Abstract

A family of SO(10) symmetric instanton solutions in Type IIB supergravity is developed. The instanton of least action is a candidate for the low-energy, semiclassical approximation to the {D=--1} brane. Unlike a previously published solution,[GGP] this admits an interpretation as a tunneling amplitude between perturbatively degenerate asymptotic states, but with action twice that found previously. A number of associated issues are discussed such as the relation between the magnetic and electric pictures, an inversion symmetry of the dilaton and the metric, the $R\times S^9$ topology of the background, and some properties of the solution in an "instanton frame" corresponding to a Lagrangian in which the dilaton's kinetic energy vanishes.