Aspects of supertubes

TL;DR

This paper explores supersymmetric D4 brane solutions describing D2 supertubes with arbitrary shapes, extending known configurations, and analyzes their stability and exactness in string theory, providing new insights into their causal structure.

Contribution

It introduces new supersymmetric solutions for D2 supertubes ending on arbitrary curves within D4 branes, including higher-dimensional extensions and exact solutions in string theory.

Findings

Supersymmetric D4 brane solutions for D2 supertubes with arbitrary cross-sections.

Higher-dimensional generalizations of supertube configurations.

Open-string worldsheet analysis shows exactness to all orders in alpha'.

Abstract

We find supersymmetric solutions of the D4 brane Born-Infeld action describing D2 supertubes ending on an arbitrary curve inside a D4 brane. From the D4 brane point of view, these are dyonic strings. We also consider various higher dimensional extensions of the usual supertubes, involving expanded D4 and D3 brane configurations. Finally, considering the worldsheet theory for open strings on a supertube, we show that this configuration is an exact solution to all orders in alpha'. Further the causal structure of the open-string metric provides new insight into the arbitrary cross-section of the supertube solutions. From this point of view, it is similar to the arbitrary profile that appears for certain null plane waves.