# The charge radius of a D𝑝brane

## Abstract

Sen has shown that tachyon condensation in Dbrane–anti-Dbrane configurations can lead to remarkable connections between string theories. A consequence of his results is that there is a minimal value of the radial coördinate $`r_c\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}(gN)^{1/(9p)}`$ such that N units of D$`p`$brane charge cannot be localized to values smaller than $`r_c.`$ At this value of $`r_c`$ the curvature and the gradient of the Ramond-Ramond field strength are of order $`1/\alpha ^{},`$ and the vacuum, regarded as a Dbrane–anti-Dbrane configuration with a tachyon condensate, is rendered unstable, leading to a separation of the Dbrane and the anti-Dbrane. This value of $`r_c`$ lies in the region intermediate between the near-horizon regime and the asymptotic regime for Dbrane classical solutions for small $`g.`$ This vacuum stability bound on the curvature can be interpreted as an uncertainty relation for Dbrane charge.

Sen has recently found remarkable exact descriptions of Dbrane–anti-Dbrane configurations that exhibit crucial connections between non-BPS states in dual string theories. Witten related these results to $`K`$–theory, putting the specific examples found by Sen into a general framework. In this paper, we examine a particular physical consequence of these ideas.

Dbrane–anti-Dbrane configurations are not supersymmetric by themselves. Indeed, they exhibit tachyonic instabilities for short distances. The particular aspect of Sen’s work that will be of interest to us is that tachyon condensation leads to a stable configuration of a Dbrane lying on top of an anti-Dbrane. With such a tachyon condensate, Sen and Witten have argued that this configuration is equivalent to the vacuum, hence it is supersymmetric in particular. This stable configuration of a Dbrane–anti-Dbrane pair with a tachyon condensate has the important property that the open string mode that corresponds to separating the Dbrane from the anti-Dbrane becomes massive. Tachyon condensation leading to stable configurations appeared also in .

In  Sen found an exact conformal field theory description of an anti-Dstring–Dstring pair with a $`𝐙_2`$ Wilson line on one of the strings. This turned out, when the tachyon was given an expectation value, to be a configuration describing a particle, the strong coupling limit of the massive Spin(32)/$`𝐙_2`$ spinor state of the heterotic string. In particular, this configuration was shown to possess SO(9) invariance, which implies that, except at the position of the kink of the tachyon field produced by the presence of a Wilson line, along the anti-Dstring–Dstring pair, the configuration is equivalent to ‘nothing’, as mentioned above. See also the discussion in Witten. Sen also showed that the mode corresponding to relative motion of the Dstring–anti-Dstring acquires a mass when the tachyon condenses. This mode is a linear combination of the U(1) modes corresponding to motion of the Dstring and the anti-Dstring, and is not projected out by the GSO projection since it is a mode that corresponds to strings stretched from the Dstring to itself, and strings stretched from the anti-Dstring to itself.

We expect that these features should appear in any such Dpbrane–anti-Dpbrane configuration, independent of $`p.`$ Specifically we assume that (1) ‘nothing’ is equivalent to a D$`p`$brane–anti-D$`p`$brane with a tachyon condensate, and that (2) modes corresponding to relative motion of the D$`p`$brane–anti-D$`p`$brane acquire a finite mass when the tachyon condenses. As indicated in the preceding paragraph, these facts were explicitly demonstrated by Sen for the Dstring–anti-Dstring configuration with a Wilson line, but the presence of the Wilson line does not seem to imply anything other than the formation of a kink in the tachyon condensate. From a spacetime perspective, it is difficult to see how either of our assumptions depends on the presence of the Wilson line. We are extrapolating from demonstrated facts about Dstrings to general D$`p`$branes. It could be that new features arise in general that invalidate our analysis.

In principle, the annulus diagram with the analogue of Sen’s conformal field theory without the Wilson line should describe the force between Dbranes and anti-Dbranes in the presence of a tachyon condensate. However, we have not succeeded in eliminating the Wilson line from his construction so we are forced to rely on a spacetime perspective for our conclusions. As we discuss below, we will only need a ‘sub–stringy’ domain where the forces due to supergraviton exchange are still small, so this spacetime perspective may be justified.

An important point: Our discussion will be phrased in terms of a radial coördinate $`r`$ transverse to the branes. We will be computing gradients in the radial direction at such values of the radius that covariant derivatives can be replaced by partial $`r`$ derivatives to lowest order in $`gN.`$ Since the proper distance to the coördinate $`r=0`$ is infinite for $`p<4,`$ it is not strictly correct in these cases to speak of the charge radius, since $`r_c`$ is an infinite proper distance away from $`r=0.`$ The actual determination of $`r_c`$ below will rely only on the magnitude of the gradient of the force felt by an anti–Dbrane, and is therefore independent of the proper distance to $`r=0.`$

A detailed analysis of the classical size of Dbranes was given by Barbón some time ago. It is informative to compare his discussion with that given below.

We consider such a ‘probe’ Dbrane–anti-Dbrane pair with a tachyon condensate in the background produced by a source of $`N`$ Dbranes. Remark that it is an abuse of common terminology to talk of this configuration as a ‘probe’ because it is equivalent to the vacuum—what we are actually considering is the polarization of the vacuum produced by the $`N`$ Dbranes. Whenever we use the term ‘probe’ in the following, we always mean the brane–antibrane–tachyon condensate configuration equivalent to the vacuum. The probe Dbrane feels no force due to the source because of its BPS character, but the probe anti-Dbrane feels a static attraction towards the source. Since the open string mode corresponding to separating the probe pair is massive, this attraction merely gives this field in the world-volume theory of the probe pair an expectation value. However, because the source sets up a static force on the Dbrane–anti-Dbrane probe that has a non-vanishing gradient, it follows that at a critical value of the radial coördinate $`r_c`$ between the probe and the source, the separation mode becomes massless and the anti-Dbrane can combine with the source. The end result is a configuration in which the probe pair has been reduced to a probe Dbrane, and the source configuration has $`N1`$ Dbranes. Thus, $`r_c`$ measures the critical value of the radial coördinate below which it is not possible to localize Dbrane charge. The dependence of this critical value of $`r_c`$ on the string coupling $`g`$ will be deduced below.

The coupling of a Dbrane to background fields is given by the Dirac–Born–Infeld action with a Chern–Simons term

$$S_p=\mu _p\text{d}^{p+1}\xi \text{e}^\mathrm{\Phi }\left[detG_{ab}+B_{ab}+2\pi \alpha ^{}F_{ab}\right]^{1/2}+S_{cs}$$
(1)   
with

$$S_{cs}i\mu _p\left(\text{e}^{B_{ab}+2\pi \alpha ^{}F_{ab}}\underset{q}{}C_q\right)_{p+1}$$
(2)   
in notation as in . The metric and Ramond-Ramond fields produced by a source of $`N`$ D$`p`$ branes are

$$\text{d}s^2=f^{1/2}\text{d}x_{}^2+f^{1/2}\text{d}x_{}^2,$$
(3)   
with a dilaton

$$\mathrm{exp}(2\mathrm{\Phi })=f^{(p3)/2},\mathrm{with}f1+\frac{NgK_p}{7p}\frac{\alpha _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(7p)/2}}{r^{7p}}$$
(4)   
and an antisymmetric tensor field strength obtained from a $`p`$form potential $`C_pf^1.`$

The appearance of a massive separation mode $`X`$ implies that there is a term that should be added to eq. (1) of the form

$$\mathrm{\Delta }S_p=\frac{1}{g}\text{d}^{p+1}\xi \mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Phi })\left[detG_{ab}\right]^{1/2}\frac{1}{4\alpha ^{}}X^2.$$
(5)   
Now, for an anti-Dbrane–Dbrane pair, the complete potential consists of two terms, the potential felt by the anti-Dbrane due to graviton-dilaton and Ramond-Ramond exchange and the mass term for the separation mode. The energy change if we displace the anti-Dbrane relative to the Dbrane in the direction of the source is

$$_rf^1\delta X(2+\frac{1}{4\alpha ^{}}X^2)+\frac{1}{2\alpha ^{}}f^1X\delta X$$
(6)   
Stability requires that the second variation with respect to $`X`$ should be positive definite evaluated at $`X=0.`$ An elementary explicit calculation shows that at a critical radius $`r_c,`$ $`X`$ becomes massless when

$$\left(\frac{r_c}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}\right)^{9p}4(8p)K_pgN$$
(7)   
up to higher powers of $`gN.`$ At this radius, the anti-Dbrane is no longer bound to the Dbrane, and can move away without incurring any cost in energy. Thus for $`r<r_c,`$ anti-Dbrane–Dbrane pairs can be nucleated by the gradients of the background fields due to the source D-branes. This is not a non-perturbative process—it follows entirely from the statement that the D-brane–anti-D-brane configuration with a tachyon condensate is equivalent to ‘nothing’.

Let us evaluate the value of $`f`$ at this value of $`r_c`$ (eq. (7) ): We find that $`f(r_c)=1`$ up to terms of order $`(gN)^{2/(9p)}.`$ Thus the metric is close to the Minkowski metric as far as distance measurements are concerned in the vicinity of $`r_c.`$ There is no physical significance to the value of $`r_c`$ but computing the curvature (or the gradient of the Ramond-Ramond field strength) at $`r_c`$eq. (7) we find $`R_{\mu \nu }1/\alpha ^{}.`$ Thus the coördinate independent physical significance of this critical value of the coördinate $`r`$ is that the curvature produced by the source Dbranes becomes of order 1 in string units. $`1/\alpha ^{}`$ appears here as a bound on curvatures produced by Dbranes, which is quite different from the size of Dbranes as determined by string scattering. Our bound is, in fact, more reminiscent of an uncertainty relation, since the curvature is exactly the commutator of covariant derivatives—what we have found is that the vacuum is rendered unstable if there are Ramond-Ramond field strength gradients that are larger than $`1/\alpha ^{}.`$ Such Ramond-Ramond field strengths are always accompanied by curvature, though the converse does not hold.

Since we have arrived at a conclusion that involves curvatures of order $`1/\alpha ^{},`$ while taking into account only the massless closed string backgrounds induced by the $`N`$ Dbranes, we must address the question of massive closed string backgrounds. Recall that from a string field theory perspective, massive closed string modes when integrated out lead to the nonlinearities of supergravity. Inclusion of massive closed string modes is therefore related to including nonlinear effects in supergravity. The coordinate $`r_c`$ lies in exactly the intermediate regime between the near–horizon geometry and the asymptotic geometry. The latter is adequately described by single supergraviton exchange, and massive string backgrounds are not induced in this regime. Now, one can compute the force felt by the anti-Dbrane in the intermediate regime at $`r_c,`$ and one finds that this force is small, of order $`(gN)^{1/(9p)},`$ at $`r_c.`$

While pure supergravity is only accurate for $`r>r_c,`$ the supergravity calculation should still be a valid qualitative guide to the behaviour at $`r_c,`$ without including either nonlinearities or massive closed string modes.

Notice that $`r_c`$ scales with $`N`$ for all $`p`$ as if the $`N`$ units of charge were distributed uniformly over a transverse sphere of radius $`r_c`$ (as measured in a flat metric). This extensivity suggests that our conclusions may be valid for $`N`$ small as well, though the discussion above assumes $`N`$ large. Measured in a flat metric, for $`p=0,N=1`$ this critical radius $`r_c\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}g^{1/9}`$ should be compared to $`\mathrm{}_{11}\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}g^{1/3},`$ the Planck length in eleven dimensions, which appears in D0brane quantum mechanics. For small $`g`$ $`r_c`$ is much larger than $`\mathrm{}_{11}.`$

Considering the $`N`$ dependence of $`r_c`$ around a configuration of $`N`$ D0branes, we find $`r_cN^{1/9}.`$ Recall that in  such an $`N`$ dependence of length scales was argued to be required for holography on rather general grounds. There are no anti–D0branes in the light–front Hamiltonian, but the $`N`$ dependence of $`r_c`$ that we find suggests that the physics of a finite charge radius could be incorporated in the mysterious vacuum state of the light–front Hamiltonian.

For $`p=3`$ and small $`gN,`$ $`r_c\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}(gN)^{1/6}\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}(gN)^{1/4}R,`$ the length scale characterizing the geometry at small values of $`r.`$ Thus, at small $`gN,`$ we would expect the IIB string theory to exhibit effects of a finite charge ‘radius’. Since our estimate is not valid for large $`gN,`$ we cannot extrapolate to this regime, but clearly one would expect a qualitative change in the nature of the physics when $`r_cR,`$ i.e. at $`gN1.`$ This is also the length scale at which stringy effects should become important in Maldacena’s conjecture. How the physics of $`r_c`$ would appear in a sigma model with the isometry group appropriate for the near–horizon geometry is an interesting question.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are very grateful to I. Klebanov, G. Lifschytz, R.C. Myers, J. Polchinski and H. Verlinde for helpful conversations. H. Verlinde (unpublished) has also considered the physics of anti–Dbrane probes in Dbrane backgrounds. This work was supported in part by NSF grant PHY-9802484.