Absorption by Branes and Schwinger Terms in the World Volume Theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates how D3-branes absorb gravitons, linking the process to stress-energy tensor correlators and demonstrating the non-renormalization of the absorption cross-section in N=4 SYM, ensuring agreement with supergravity results.

Contribution

It establishes a direct connection between graviton absorption by branes and Schwinger terms in stress-energy correlators, extending the understanding to various brane configurations.

Findings

Absorption cross-section is determined by the central charge in stress-energy correlators.

Non-renormalization theorem ensures the low-energy absorption cross-section is unaffected by quantum corrections.

The connection between graviton absorption and Schwinger terms applies to multiple brane types in different dimensions.

Abstract

We study how coincident Dirichlet 3-branes absorb incident gravitons polarized along their world volume. We show that the absorption cross-section is determined by the central term in the correlator of two stress-energy tensors. The existence of a non-renormalization theorem for this central charge in four-dimensional N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories shows that the leading term at low energies in the absorption cross-section is not renormalized. This guarantees that the agreement of the cross-section with semiclassical supergravity, found in earlier work, survives all loop corrections. The connection between absorption of gravitons polarized along the brane and Schwinger terms in the stress-energy correlators of the world volume theory holds in general. We explore this connection to deduce some properties of the stress-energy tensor OPE's for 2-branes and 5-branes in 11 dimensions, as well as for 5-branes in 10 dimensions.