Screening and D-brane Dynamics in Finite Temperature Superstring Theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermal behavior of D-branes and open superstrings, revealing that finite temperature effects prevent constant velocity motion due to electric field screening, with implications for string dynamics and effective actions.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of D-brane and superstring thermal dynamics, highlighting the role of Debye screening and T-duality in finite temperature superstring theory.

Findings

D-brane dynamics prohibit constant velocity at finite temperature

Electric fields are Debye screened, affecting string equilibrium states

Effective Polyakov loop action describes screening solutions

Abstract

The thermal dynamics of D-branes and of open superstrings in background gauge fields is studied. It is shown that D-brane dynamics forbids constant velocity motion at finite temperature. T-duality is used to interpret this feature as a consequence of the absence of an equilibrium state of charged strings at finite temperature in a constant background electric field, as a result of Debye screening of electric fields. The effective action for the Polyakov loop operator is computed and the corresponding screening solutions are described. The finite temperature theory is also used to illustrate the importance of carefully incorporating Wu-Yang terms into the string path integral for compact target spaces.