D-Brane Recoil Mislays Information

TL;DR

This paper models the quantum recoil effects during light closed-string scattering off a D-brane, revealing entropy increase and information loss, with potential implications for string propagation in D-brane environments.

Contribution

It introduces a framework incorporating quantum recoil effects via logarithmic operators, leading to evolution equations that describe entropy increase and information loss in D-brane interactions.

Findings

Entropy of subsystems increases during interaction

Recoil effects are modeled with logarithmic operators

Evolution equations are of Fokker-Planck and Liouville type

Abstract

We discuss the scattering of a light closed-string state off a $D$ brane, taking into account quantum recoil effects on the latter, which are described by a pair of logarithmic operators. The light-particle and $D$-brane subsystems may each be described by a world-sheet with an external source due to the interaction between them. This perturbs each subsystem away from criticality, which is compensated by dressing with a Liouville field whose zero mode we interpret as time. The resulting evolution equations for the $D$ brane and the closed string are of Fokker-Planck and modified quantum Liouville type, respectively. The apparent entropy of each subsystem increases as a result of the interaction between them, which we interpret as the loss of information resulting from non-observation of the other entangled subsystem. We speculate on the possible implications of these results for the propagation of closed strings through a dilute gas of virtual $D$ branes.