On alpha'-corrections to D-brane solutions

TL;DR

This paper calculates the leading alpha'-corrections to D-brane solutions in string theory, focusing on higher derivative effects like R^4, and analyzes their impact on thermodynamics and near-horizon geometry.

Contribution

It develops new methods to derive and analyze alpha'-corrections to D-brane solutions, providing explicit results for R^4 corrections and their thermodynamic implications.

Findings

R^4 term induces corrections to tension and potential but not charge

Corrected near-horizon geometry remains AdS_5 x S^5 with same cosmological constant

Tension remains proportional to electric potential times charge

Abstract

We discuss the computation of the leading corrections to D-brane solutions due to higher derivative terms in the corresponding low energy effective action. We develop several alternative methods for analyzing the problem. In particular, we derive an effective one-dimensional action from which the field equations for spherically symmetric two-block brane solutions can be derived, show how to obtain first order equations, and discuss a few other approaches. We integrate the equations for extremal branes and obtain the corrections in terms of integrals of the evaluation of the higher derivative terms on the lowest order solution. To obtain completely explicit results one would need to know all leading higher derivative corrections which at present are not available. One of the known higher derivative terms is the R^4 term, and we obtain the corrections to the D3 brane solution due to this term alone. We note, however, that (unknown at present) higher terms depending on F_5 are expected to modify our result. We analyze the thermodynamics of brane solutions when such quantum corrections are present. We find that the R^4 term induces a correction to the tension and the electric potential of the D3 brane but not to its charge, and the tension is still proportional to the electric potential times the charge. In the near-horizon limit the corrected solution becomes AdS_5 \times S^5 with the same cosmological constant as the lowest order solution but a different value of the (constant) dilaton.