Branes, Orientifolds and the Creation of Elementary Strings

TL;DR

This paper investigates the interactions between specific brane configurations, revealing that fundamental strings are created during brane crossings and exploring implications for supergravity and string dualities.

Contribution

It demonstrates the creation of fundamental strings during brane crossings and analyzes the potential and dynamics of D0-D8 and brane-orientifold systems within supergravity frameworks.

Findings

Fundamental strings are created when two branes with eight ND-directions cross.

The potential between branes depends on whether an anti-brane is involved.

The D0-D8 system is interpreted within massive IIA supergravity.

Abstract

The potential of a configuration of two Dirichlet branes for which the number of ND-directions is eight is determined. Depending on whether one of the branes is an anti-brane or a brane, the potential vanishes or is twice as large as the dilaton-gravitational potential. This is shown to be related to the fact that a fundamental string is created when two such branes cross. Special emphasis is given to the D0-D8 system, for which an interpretation of these results in terms of the massive IIA supergravity is presented. It is also shown that the branes cannot move non-adiabatically in the transverse direction. The configuration of a zero brane and an orientifold 8-plane is analyzed in a similar way, and some implications for the type IA-heterotic duality and the heterotic matrix theory are discussed.