Fission and Fusion Bound States of p-brane Solitons

TL;DR

This paper explores how both supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric p-branes can be viewed as bound states of fundamental constituents, with variable binding energies, extending the understanding of brane composition beyond supersymmetry.

Contribution

It introduces the interpretation of non-supersymmetric p-branes as bound states of supersymmetric constituents with non-zero binding energy, broadening the framework of brane bound state analysis.

Findings

Non-supersymmetric p-branes can be constructed as bound states of supersymmetric constituents.

Binding energy can be positive, negative, or zero depending on the constituents.

The Reissner-Nordström black hole in D=4 exemplifies variable binding energies in bound state constructions.

Abstract

Supersymmetric $p$-branes that carry a single electric or magnetic charge and preserve $1/2$ of the supersymmetry have been interpreted as the constituents from which all supersymmetric $p$-branes can be constructed as bound states, albeit with zero binding energy. Here we extend the discussion to non-supersymmetric $p$-branes, and argue that they also can be interpreted as bound states of the same basic supersymmetric constituents. In general, the binding energy is non-zero, and can be either positive or negative depending on the specific choice of constituents. In particular, we find that the $a=0$ Reissner-Nordstr\o{m} black hole in $D=4$ can be built from different sets of constituents such that it has zero, positive or negative binding energy.