Tachyon condensation in open-closed p-adic string theory

TL;DR

This paper explores tachyon condensation in a p-adic string model, revealing how D-brane configurations influence the closed string background and suggesting that certain lumps correspond to lower-dimensional spacetimes.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified p-adic string model to analyze tachyon dynamics and identifies lower-dimensional spacetime structures emerging from closed string lumps.

Findings

Closed string lumps behave like lower-dimensional spacetimes

D-brane configurations affect the closed string background

Fluctuation spectra support the interpretation of lumps as noncritical string theories

Abstract

We study a simple model of p-adic closed and open strings. It sheds some light on the dynamics of tachyon condensation for both types of strings. We calculate the effect of static and decaying D-brane configurations on the closed string background. For closed string tachyons we find lumps analogous to D-branes. By studying their fluctuation spectrum and the D-branes they admit, we argue that closed string lumps should be interpreted as spacetimes of lower dimensionality described by some noncritical p-adic string theory.