Super D-branes from BRST Symmetry

TL;DR

This paper develops a covariant BRST formalism for superstring quantization to analyze Dp-branes, deriving Wess-Zumino terms and boundary states, advancing understanding of superbrane effective actions.

Contribution

It introduces a new covariant BRST approach for superbranes, deriving WZ terms and boundary states without relying on pure spinors, enhancing the theoretical framework.

Findings

Derived Wess-Zumino terms as BRST cohomology elements.

Developed boundary state descriptions for Dp-branes.

Established BRST symmetry for superbranes in covariant formalism.

Abstract

Recently a new formalism has been developed for the covariant quantization of superstrings. We study properties of Dp-branes and p-branes in this new framework, focusing on two different topics: effective actions and boundary states for Dp-branes. We present a derivation of the Wess-Zumino terms for super (D)p-branes using BRST symmetry. To achieve this we derive the BRST symmetry for superbranes, starting from the approach with/without pure spinors, and completely characterize the WZ terms as elements of the BRST cohomology. We also develope the boundary state description of Dp-branes by analyzing the boundary conditions for open strings in the completely covariant (i.e., without pure spinors) BRST formulation.