Null Brane Intersections
Constantin Bachas, Chris Hull

TL;DR
This paper investigates null hypersurface intersecting D-branes, revealing their spectrum, stability conditions, and implications for string theory backgrounds and null cosmological singularities, highlighting a novel stringy condensation mechanism.
Contribution
It introduces the study of null hypersurface intersecting D-branes, analyzing their spectrum, stability, and effects on string backgrounds and singularities, including a new understanding of BPS bound states.
Findings
Open strings between shifted D-branes have no asymptotic states.
Single non-BPS excitations can induce condensation of massless modes.
The analysis provides insights into null cosmological singularities and BPS bound states.
Abstract
We study pairs of planar D-branes intersecting on null hypersurfaces, and other related configurations. These are supersymmetric and have finite energy density. They provide open-string analogues of the parabolic orbifold and null-fluxbrane backgrounds for closed superstrings. We derive the spectrum of open strings, showing in particular that if the D-branes are shifted in a spectator dimension so that they do not intersect, the open strings joining them have no asymptotic states. As a result, a single non-BPS excitation can in this case catalyze a condensation of massless modes, changing significantly the underlying supersymmetric vacuum state. We argue that a similar phenomenon can modify the null cosmological singularity of the time-dependent orbifolds. This is a stringy mechanism, distinct from black-hole formation and other strong gravitational instabilities, and one that should…
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Taxonomy
TopicsBlack Holes and Theoretical Physics · Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations · Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect
