Related papers: Thermal Tachyons and the "g"-Theorem
The study of discrete gauge symmetries in field theory and string theory is often carried out by embedding them into continuous symmetries. Many symmetries however do not seem to admit such embedding, for instance discrete isometries given…
We propose a refinement of the physical picture describing different vacua in bosonic string theory. The vacua with closed strings and open strings are connected by the string field theory version of the Higgs mechanism, generalizing the…
The gauge invariance of cubic open superstring field theory is considered in a framework of level truncation, and applications to the tachyon condensation problem are discussed. As it is known, in the bosonic case the Feynman-Siegel gauge…
Alternative gauge choices for worldsheet supersymmetry can elucidate dynamical phenomena obscured in the usual superconformal gauge. In the particular example of the tachyonic $E_8$ heterotic string, we use a judicious gauge choice to show…
In this article, our prime objective is to study the inflationary paradigm from generalized tachyon (GTachyon) living on the world volume of a non-BPS string theory. The tachyon action is considered here is getting modified compared to the…
We show an explicit relation between an RG flow of a two-dimensional gravity and an on-shell tachyon condensation in the corresponding string theory, in the case when the string theory is supercritical. The shape of the tachyon potential in…
We study the physics of open strings in bosonic and type II string theories in the presence of unstable D-branes. When the potential energy of the open string tachyon is at its minimum, Sen has argued that only closed strings remain in the…
It has been conjectured that at the stationary point of the tachyon potential for the D-brane-anti-D-brane pair or for the non-BPS D-brane of superstring theories, the negative energy density cancels the brane tensions. We study this…
We investigate toric GLSMs as models for tachyon condensation in type II strings on space-time non-supersymmetric orbifold singularities. The A-model correlators in these theories satisfy a set of relations related to the topology of the…
The two-dimensional model which emerges from low-energy considerations of string theory is written down. Solutions of this classical model are noted, including some examples which have nontrivial tachyon field. One such represents the…
We study condensation of closed string tachyons living on defects, such as orbifold fixed planes and Neveu-Schwarz fivebranes. We argue that the high energy density of localized states decreases in the process of condensation of such…
We study the renormalization group flows of two-dimensional metrics in sigma models and demonstrate that they provide a continual analogue of the Toda field equations based on the infinite dimensional algebra G(d/dt;1). The resulting Toda…
Using string field theory, we argue that the tachyon potential on a D-brane anti-D-brane system in type II string theory in arbitrary background has a universal form, independent of the boundary conformal field theory describing the brane.…
On an unstable D-brane, the rolling of the tachyon away from the maximum of its potential is described by time-dependent solutions in string theory. Subsequent analysis leads to an understanding of physics around the tachyon vacuum in terms…
We present an exact representation for decaying ZZ-branes within the dual matrix model formulation of c=1 string theory. It is shown how to trade the insertion of decaying ZZ-branes for a shift of the closed string background. Our formlaism…
We study the role of rolling tachyons in the cosmological model with dilatonic gravity. In the string frame, flat space solutions of both initial-stage and late-time are obtained in closed form. In the Einstein frame, we show that every…
Closed string tachyon condensation in spacetime generates potentials on the worldsheet that model two-dimensional inflationary cosmology. These models illustrate and elucidate a variety of aspects of inflation, in particular the generation…
It is well-known that Scherk-Schwarz compactifications in string theory have a tachyon in the closed string spectrum appearing for a critical value of a compact radius. The tachyon can be removed by an appropriate orientifold projection in…
In this paper closed string emission and open string pair production from the light-like rolling tachyon solution are calculated in subcritical string theory in the background of a linear dilaton. The rolling light-like tachyon represents…
In this review we describe our current understanding of the properties of open string tachyons on an unstable D-brane or brane-antibrane system in string theory. The various string theoretic methods used for this study include techniques of…