Super Jackstraws and Super Waterwheels

TL;DR

This paper constructs new supersymmetric D-brane configurations called super Jackstraws and super waterwheels, revealing their properties, symmetries, and how S-duality generates diverse intersecting string arrangements.

Contribution

It introduces novel BPS states of D-branes, including super Jackstraws and super waterwheels, and demonstrates how S-duality generates complex intersecting string configurations.

Findings

Super Jackstraws preserve 8 supersymmetries with scattered D-strings.

Super waterwheels are D2-branes intersecting at angles, preserving 8 supersymmetries.

S-duality transforms configurations of (p,q)-strings at various angles.

Abstract

We construct various new BPS states of D-branes preserving 8 supersymmetries. These include super Jackstraws (a bunch of scattered D- or (p,q)-strings preserving supersymmetries), and super waterwheels (a number of D2-branes intersecting at generic angles on parallel lines while preserving supersymmetries). Super D-Jackstraws are scattered in various dimensions but are dynamical with all their intersections following a common null direction. Meanwhile, super (p,q)-Jackstraws form a planar static configuration. We show that the SO(2) subgroup of SL(2,R), the group of classical S-duality transformations in IIB theory, can be used to generate this latter configuration of variously charged (p,q)-strings intersecting at various angles. The waterwheel configuration of D2-branes preserves 8 supersymmetries as long as the `critical' Born-Infeld electric fields are along the common direction.