Negative-tension branes and tensionless 12 brane in boundary conformal field theory

Abstract

In the framework of boundary conformal field theory we consider a flat unstable Dp-brane in the presence of a large constant electromagnetic field. Specifically, we study the case that the electromagnetic field satisfy the following three conditions: (i) a constant electric field is turned on along the x1 direction (E1≠0); (ii) the determinant of the matrix (η+F) is negative so that it lies in the physical region (-det(η+F)>0); (iii) the 11-component of its cofactor is positive to the large electromagnetic field. In this case, we identify exactly marginal deformations depending on the spatial coordinate x1. They correspond to tachyon profiles of hyperbolic sine, exponential, and hyperbolic cosine types. Boundary states are constructed for these deformations by utilizing T-duality approach and also by directly solving the overlap conditions in BCFT. The exponential type deformation gives a tensionless half brane connecting the perturbative string vacuum and one of the true tachyon vacua, while the others have negative tensions. This is in agreement with the results obtained in other approaches. © 2008 The American Physical Society.