Realization of Brane Descent Relations in Effective Theories
Koji Hashimoto, Satoshi Nagaoka
TL;DR
The paper tests Sen's descent relations for tachyon condensation using low-energy effective actions of brane–antibrane systems. By analyzing kink and vortex solutions in DpDp̄ actions, it shows that the kink reproduces the worldvolume content of a non-BPS D(p−1)-brane and the vortex yields a BPS D(p−2)-brane, with fluctuation spectra that can be universal across action choices. The authors explicitly derive a Dirac–Born–Infeld description for the vortex and demonstrate universality of the spectra under generalized actions constrained by BSFT results. Together, these results provide robust evidence that Sen's descent relations hold at the level of effective field theories and offer a framework for constructing brane bound states via tachyon condensation.
Abstract
We examine Sen's descent relations among (non-)BPS D-branes by using low energy effective field theories of DpDpbar system. We find that the fluctuation around the kink solution reproduces the low energy matter content on a non-BPS D(p-1)-brane. The effective action for these fluctuation modes turns out to be a generalization of Minahan-Zwiebach model. In addition, it is shown that the fluctuations around the vortex solution consist of massless fields on a BPS D(p-2)-brane and they are subject to Dirac-Born-Infeld action. We find the universality that the above results do not refer to particular forms of the effective action.