On the Opening of Branes

TL;DR

This paper explores how open branes with boundaries attached to closed branes in supergravity theories can be understood through charge conservation, gauge invariance, and supersymmetry, revealing new insights into brane interactions and M-theory.

Contribution

It introduces a framework relating open brane boundaries to closed branes via Goldstone fields, extending the understanding of brane dynamics and emission processes.

Findings

Boundary charges are determined by supersymmetry and gauge invariance.

Open brane boundaries can annihilate, restoring zero binding energy.

The work suggests a mechanism for brane emission similar to string emission by D-branes.

Abstract

We relate, in 10 and 11 dimensional supergravities, configurations of intersecting closed branes with vanishing binding energy to configurations where one of the branes opens and has its boundaries attached to the other. These boundaries are charged with respect to fields living on the closed brane. The latter hosts electric and magnetic charges stemming from dual pairs of open branes terminating on it. We show that charge conservation, gauge invariance and supersymmetry entirely determine these charges and these fields, which can be seen as Goldstone fields of broken supersymmetry. Open brane boundary charges can annihilate, restoring the zero binding energy configuration. This suggests emission of closed branes by branes, a generalization of closed string emission by D-branes. We comment on the relation of the Goldstone fields to matrix models approaches to M-theory.