Vortex Pair Creation on Brane-Antibrane Pair via Marginal Deformation

TL;DR

The paper proves that a vortex solution on a brane–antibrane pair is equivalent to a lower-dimensional D-brane by constructing a sequence of marginal BCFT deformations starting from a D2–$\overline{\mathrm{D}2}$ system. This involves compactifying tangential directions, turning on half-unit Wilson lines, and tuning to a critical radius where tachyonic modes become marginal, then turning on a specific marginal tachyon background to create a vortex–antivortex pair. Through a dual-coordinate reinterpretation, the end-state is identified with a D0–$\overline{\mathrm{D}0}$ pair, and the method generalizes to higher codimension solitons. The work strengthens the brane-descent picture via tachyon condensation by providing an explicit, BCFT-based construction and extending it to codimension $2n$ (and odd codimension) solitons, thereby linking vortex solutions to lower-dimensional branes in a precise, calculable framework.

Abstract

It has been conjectured that the vortex solution on a D-brane - anti-D-brane system represents a D-brane of two lower dimension. We establish this result by first identifying a series of marginal deformations which create the vortex - antivortex pair on the brane - antibrane system, and then showing that under this series of marginal deformations the original D-brane - anti-D-brane system becomes a D-brane - anti-D-brane system with two lower dimensions. Generalization of this construction to the case of solitons of higher codimension is also discussed.