Supertubes

TL;DR

The paper shows that a IIA superstring can be nonperturbatively blown up into a 1/4-supersymmetric tubular D2-brane (supertube) in flat Minkowski space, stabilized by angular momentum generated by crossed Born-Infeld electric and magnetic fields. By analyzing the DBI action, it derives a lower bound on the tube’s energy per unit length tau >= |q_s|+|q_0|, with equality at a radius R = sqrt(|q_s q_0|) and J = q_s q_0, establishing a stable, supersymmetric configuration without external forces. Supersymmetry is shown to be preserved through kappa-symmetry constraints, yielding a D2-brane solution that corresponds to a D2-D0 bound state in a BIon-like regime, and connections to Q-lump solitons in sigma-models. The work also discusses M-theory duals and the broader implications for brane polarization, angular-momentum bounds, and the landscape of supersymmetric brane configurations in flat backgrounds.

Abstract

It is shown that a IIA superstring carrying D0-brane charge can be `blown-up', in a {\it Minkowski vacuum} background, to a (1/4)-supersymmetric tubular D2-brane, supported against collapse by the angular momentum generated by crossed electric and magnetic Born-Infeld fields. This `supertube' can be viewed as a worldvolume realization of the sigma-model Q-lump.