Weyl-Conformally-Invariant Lightlike p-Brane Theories: New Aspects in Black Hole Physics and Kaluza-Klein Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper introduces Weyl-conformally invariant lightlike p-brane theories that differ from traditional branes, revealing new phenomena in black hole physics and Kaluza-Klein models, including their role as dynamical horizons and massless modes in compactified spaces.

Contribution

The study presents a novel class of Weyl-invariant lightlike p-brane models with explicit solutions, demonstrating their unique physical roles in black hole horizons and Kaluza-Klein compactifications.

Findings

WILL-branes position themselves on black hole horizons, modeling the membrane paradigm.

In Kaluza-Klein spaces, they wrap internal dimensions and describe massless modes.

New solutions show massless brane modes on circular orbits with angular momentum.

Abstract

We introduce and study in some detail the properties of a novel class of Weyl-conformally invariant p-brane theories which describe intrinsically lightlike branes for any odd world-volume dimension. Their dynamics significantly differs from that of the ordinary (conformally non-invariant) Nambu-Goto p-branes. We present explicit solutions of the Weyl-invariant lightlike brane- (WILL-brane) equations of motion in various gravitational models of physical relevance exhibiting various new phenomena. In D=4 the WILL-membrane serves as a material and charged source for gravity and electromagnetism in the coupled Einstein-Maxwell-WILL-membrane system; it automatically positions itself on (``straddles'') the common event horizon of the corresponding matching black hole solutions, thus providing an explicit dynamical realization of the membrane paradigm in black hole physics. In product spaces of interest in Kaluza-Klein theories the WILL-brane wraps non-trivially around the compact (internal)dimensions and still describes massless mode dynamics in the non-compact (space-time) dimensions. Due to nontrivial variable size of the internal compact dimensions we find new types of physically interesting solutions describing massless brane modes trapped on bounded planar circular orbits with non-trivial angular momentum, and with linear dependence between energy and angular momentum.