Giant hedge-hogs: spikes on giant gravitons

Abstract

We consider giant gravitons on the maximally supersymmetric plane-wave background of type IIB string theory. Fixing the light-cone gauge, we deduce the low energy effective light-cone Hamiltonian of the three-sphere giant graviton. At first order, this is a U(1) gauge theory on R×S 3 . We place sources in this effective gauge theory. Although non-vanishing net electric charge configurations are disallowed by Gauss' law, electric dipoles can be formed. From the string theory point of view these dipoles can be understood as open strings piercing the three-sphere, generalizing the usual BIons to the giant gravitons (BIGGons). Our results can be used to give a two-dimensional (worldsheet) description of giant gravitons, similar to Polchinski's description for the usual D-branes, in agreement with the discussions of hep-th/0204196.