Classical dynamics of brane-world extended objects

Abstract

We make use of the universally valid stress-energy conservation law to study the motion of various branelike extended objects in a generic brane-world. Without specifying any particular action, we are able to derive the world-sheet equations that govern the dynamics of brane-world test branes. In particular, the brane-world test particles are shown to follow geodesics with respect to the brane-world induced metric. At the same time, the presence of extended objects is shown to influence the brane-world geometry. It is demonstrated that codimension-1 branes necessarily violate the brane-world smooth structure, while lower-dimensional branes violate the very continuity. In particular, the truly zero-size massive particles are shown not to exist in a continuous brane-world. As an example, static, axially symmetric membrane-world in 4d Minkowski background is analyzed.