D-branes from classical macroscopic strings

Abstract

This paper is a sequel to the series of papers dedicated to model independent analysis of brane-like extended objects in curved backgrounds. In particular, we study cylindrical membranes wrapped around the extra compact dimension of a (D + 1)-dimensional Riemann–Cartan spacetime. The world-sheet equations are obtained from the universally valid conservation equations of the membrane stress–energy and spin tensors. In the limit of small extra dimension, the dimensionally reduced theory is obtained. The narrow membrane becomes an effective string characterized not only by tension and spin, but also by electric and dilaton charges. The boundary of such an effective string has been shown to live in less spacetime dimensions than its interior. Precisely, the string endpoints are trapped by the surfaces orthogonal to the gradient of the effective dilaton field. The string dynamics has been shown to follow from an action functional subject to the Dirichlet boundary conditions. This way, we have succeeded in obtaining a macroscopic D-brane analogue.