Tachyon Condensation on a non-BPS D-brane

TL;DR

The paper analyzes tachyon condensation on a non-BPS D-brane using open superstring field theory with level truncation. By including level 2 fields and level-4 action terms, it computes the tachyon potential and finds a minimum value of $V_{\min} = -0.90454\,M$, corresponding to $90.5\%$ of the conjectured $-M$, thereby providing quantitative support for tachyon condensation canceling brane tension at this order. It extends prior zeroth- and first-nontrivial-level results and delivers an explicit effective tachyon potential $V_{\text{eff}}(t)$ along with detailed Appendix data on conformal and BRST structures. The results demonstrate the efficacy of level-truncation in open superstring field theory for non-BPS configurations and refine our understanding of tachyon dynamics on such branes.

Abstract

We extend the recent computation of the tachyon potential by Berkovits, Sen and Zwiebach by including level two fields and keeping up to level four terms in the action. We find 90.5% of the expected result.

Figures (1)

• Figure 1: The effective tachyon potential in the three approximations.