Open-closed string correspondence: D-brane decay in curved space

TL;DR

This paper investigates how curved closed string backgrounds influence D-brane stability, revealing that certain branes decay or condense into lower-dimensional stable branes, supporting open-closed string correspondence.

Contribution

It introduces a non-local open string background that captures shifts in the closed string background and analyzes tachyon condensation in curved spaces, extending understanding of D-brane dynamics.

Findings

Absence of stable space-filling branes in curved backgrounds

Tachyon condensation leads to lower-dimensional stable branes

Supports bulk-boundary factorization in open-closed string correspondence

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of curved closed string backgrounds on the stability of D-branes within boundary string field theory. We identify the non-local open string background that implements shifts in the closed string background and analyze the tachyonic sector off-shell. The renormalization group flow reveals some characteristic properties, which are expected for a curved background, like the absence of a stable space-filling brane. In 3-dimensions we describe tachyon condensation processes to lower-dimensional branes, including a curved 2-dimensional brane. We argue that this 2-brane is perturbatively stable. This is in agreement with the known maximally symmetric WZW-branes and provides further support to the bulk-boundary factorization approach to open-closed string correspondence.