The Super D9-Brane and its Truncations

TL;DR

This paper explores two distinct truncations of the super D9-brane, revealing their supersymmetric properties, degrees of freedom, and connections to the Volkov-Akulov action, with implications across multiple dimensions.

Contribution

It introduces and analyzes the Heterotic and Type I truncations of the super D9-brane, highlighting their supersymmetrization of the cosmological constant and novel reformulation of the Volkov-Akulov action.

Findings

Both truncations lead to N=1 nonlinear supersymmetrization of the D=10 cosmological constant.

The propagating degrees of freedom are a D=10 vector multiplet and a Majorana-Weyl spinor.

The Ramond-Ramond super ten-form reformulates the Volkov-Akulov action after the Type I truncation.

Abstract

We consider two inequivalent truncations of the super D9--brane: the ``Heterotic'' and the ``Type I'' truncation. Both of them lead to an N=1 nonlinear supersymmetrization of the D=10 cosmological constant. The propagating degrees of freedom in the Heterotic and Type I truncation are given by the components of a D=10 vector multiplet and a single Majorana-Weyl spinor, respectively. As a by-product we find that, after the Type I truncation, the Ramond-Ramond super ten-form provides an interesting reformulation of the Volkov-Akulov action. These results can be extended to all dimensions in which spacetime filling D-branes exist, i.e. D=3,4,6 and 10.