Scattering of strings from D-branes

Abstract

We review a number of perturbative calculations describing the interactions of D-branes with massless elementary string states. The form factors for the scattering of closed strings off D-branes are closely related to the Veneziano amplitude. They show that, in interactions with strings, D-branes acquire many of their physical features: the effective size of D-branes is of order the string scale and expands with the energy of the probe, while the fixed angle scattering amplitudes fall off exponentially. We also calculate the leading process responsible for the absorption of closed strings: the amplitude for a closed string to turn into a pair of open strings attached to the D-brane. The inverse of this process describes the Hawking radiation by an excited D-brane.