Brane Boxes: Bending and Beta Functions

TL;DR

This paper explores the construction of smooth type IIB brane box configurations with arbitrary gauge structures, analyzing how brane bending relates to beta-functions and constraints in these theories.

Contribution

It introduces methods to construct smooth brane box configurations at finite coupling and examines the impact of brane bending on beta-functions and theory constraints.

Findings

Constructed explicit smooth brane box examples

Analyzed the relation between brane bending and beta-functions

Identified restrictions on theories from brane configurations

Abstract

We study the type IIB brane box configurations recently introduced by Hanany and Zaffaroni. We show that even at finite string coupling, one can construct smooth configurations of branes with fairly arbitrary gauge and flavor structure. Limiting our attention to the better understood case where NS-branes do not intersect over a four dimensional surface gives some restrictions on the theories, but still permits many examples, both anomalous and non-anomalous. We give several explicit examples of such configurations and discuss what constraints can be imposed on brane-box theories from bending considerations. We also discuss the relation between brane bending and beta-functions for brane-box configurations.