Tachyon Condensation for Intersecting Branes at Small and Large Angles

TL;DR

This paper reviews the analysis of intersecting branes at small and large angles, highlighting new massless modes at small angles and deriving an effective tachyon field theory at large angles, connecting worldsheet and gauge theory perspectives.

Contribution

It introduces an additional family of massless modes at small angles and derives an effective tachyon field theory for large angles, linking different analytical approaches.

Findings

Identification of new massless modes at small angles.

Derivation of an effective tachyon field theory at large angles.

Consistency between gauge symmetry and worldsheet analysis results.

Abstract

We review the worldsheet analysis for intersecting branes with focus on small and large angles. For small angles, we review the Yang-Mills fluctuation analysis in hep-th/0303204 and find an additional family of massless modes. They are the components of a Goldstone scalar corresponding to the spontaneously broken U(2)-gauge symmetry. For branes at large angles, we derive an effective tachyon field theory from BSFT results. We show how the gauge symmetry of this system implies a mass spectrum which is consistent with the worldsheet analysis.