D-branes in a plane wave from covariant open strings

TL;DR

This paper derives boundary conditions for covariant open strings in a plane wave background, revealing supersymmetry properties of D-branes and connecting to supergravity and AdS/CFT insights.

Contribution

It provides a covariant derivation of D-brane boundary conditions in a plane wave, clarifying supersymmetry preservation and spectrum from a covariant perspective.

Findings

Half- and quarter-supersymmetric D-branes identified.

Consistent with probe brane and supergravity results.

Analysis of D-string supersymmetry and spectrum.

Abstract

We derive boundary conditions for the covariant open string corresponding to D-branes in an Hpp-wave, by requiring kappa symmetry of its bulk action. Both half-supersymmetric and quarter-supersymmetric branes are seen to arise in this way, and the analysis furthermore agrees fully with the existing probe brane and supergravity computations. We elaborate on the origin of dynamical and kinematical supersymmetries from the covariant point of view. In particular we focus on the D-string which only preserves half of the dynamical supersymmetries and none of the kinematical ones. We discuss its origin in AdS_5 x S^5 and its world-volume spectrum.