D-branes in Yang-Mills theory and Emergent Gauge Symmetry

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that certain charged states in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on a sphere can be interpreted as D-branes, leading to an emergent non-Abelian gauge symmetry from string-like excitations.

Contribution

It reveals how D-branes and non-Abelian gauge symmetries emerge dynamically in a reduced matrix model of supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory.

Findings

Charged baryon-like states are D-branes.

String excitations realize boundary conditions and gauge dynamics.

Emergent gauge symmetry is non-Abelian with Chan-Paton factors.

Abstract

Four-dimensional supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory on a sphere has highly charged baryon-like states built from anti-symmetric combinations of the adjoint scalars. We show that these states, which are equivalently described as holes in a free fermi sea of a reduced matrix model, are D-branes. Their excitations are stringlike and effectively realize Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions in various directions. The low energy brane dynamics should realize an emergent gauge theory that is local on a new space. We show that the Gauss' Law associated to this emergent gauge symmetry appears from combinatorial identities relating the stringy excitations. Although these excitations are not BPS, they can be near-BPS and we can hope to study them in perturbation theory. Accordingly, we show that the Chan-Paton factors expected for strings propagating on multiple branes arise dynamically, allowing the emergent gauge symmetry to be non-Abelian.