Related papers: The Shapes of Dirichlet Defects

Conformal blocks form a system of vector bundles over the moduli space of complex curves with marked points. We discuss various aspects of these bundles. In particular, we present conjectures about the dimensions of sub-bundles. They imply…

The topic of cosmic strings provides a bridge between the physics of the very small and the very large. They are predicted by some unified theories of particle interactions. If they exist, they may help to explain some of the largest-scale…

We study global worldsheet anomalies for open strings ending on several coincident D-branes in the presence of a B-field. We show that cancellation of anomalies is made possible by a correlation between the t'Hooft magnetic flux on the…

We derive D-brane gauge theories for C^3/Z_n x Z_n orbifolds with discrete torsion and study the moduli space of a D-brane at a point. We show that, as suggested in previous work, closed string moduli do not fully resolve the singularity,…

It is shown how two-dimensional states corresponding to D-branes arise in orbifolds of topologically massive gauge and gravity theories. Brane vertex operators naturally appear in induced worldsheet actions when the three-dimensional gauge…

The defect conformal field theory describing intersecting D3-branes at a C^2/Z_k orbifold is used to (de)construct the theory of intersecting M5-branes, as well as M5-branes wrapping the holomorphic curve xy=c. The possibility of a 't Hooft…

We show that string theory with Dirichlet boundaries is equivalent to string theory containing surfaces with certain singular points. Surface curvature is singular at these points. A singular point is resolved in conformal coordinates to a…

We investigate the D-brane contents of asymmetric orbifolds. Using T-duality we find that the consistent description of open strings in asymmetric orbifolds requires to turn on background gauge fields on the D-branes. We derive the…

It is generally accepted that the double-scaled 1D matrix model is equivalent to the $c=1$ string theory with tachyon condensation. There remain however puzzles that are to be clarified in order to utilize this connection for our quest…

We analyze global anomalies for elementary Type II strings in the presence of D-branes. Global anomaly cancellation gives a restriction on the D-brane topology. This restriction makes possible the interpretation of D-brane charge as an…

We show how the topological string partition function, which is known to capture the degeneracies of a gas of BPS spinning M2-branes in M-theory compactified to 5 dimensions, is related to a 4-dimensional D-brane system that consists of…

We study decay of unstable D-branes in string theory in the presence of electric field, and show that the classical open string theory results for various properties of the final state agree with the properties of closed string states into…

In this thesis we discuss some nonperturbative and noncommutative aspects of string theory. We present low-energy background field solutions corresponding to various D-branes (and their bound states) and intersecting branes in flat and…

We study D-branes on three-dimensional orbifold backgrounds that admit topologically distinct resolutions differing by flop transitions. We show that these distinct phases are part of the vacuum moduli space of the super Yang-Mills gauge…

We study phase transitions induced by topological defects in Abelian gauge theories of open p-branes in (d+1) space-time dimensions. Starting from a massive antisymmetric tensor theory for open p-branes we show how the condensation of…

Boundary conditions and defects of any codimension are natural parts of any quantum field theory. Surface defects in three-dimensional topological field theories of Turaev-Reshetikhin type have applications to two-dimensional conformal…

This is the first of a series of papers discussing canonical aspects of the two-dimensional non-linear sigma model in the presence of conformal defects on the world-sheet in the framework of gerbe theory. In the paper, the basic tools of…

We consider a string theory with two types of strings with geometric interaction. We show that the theory contains strings with constant Dirichlet boundary condition and those strings are glued together by 2-d topological gravity with…

The shape of D-branes is of fundamental interest in string theory. We find that generically D-branes in trivial spacetime can form a conic shape under external uniform forces. Surprisingly, the apex angle is found to be unique, once the…

The actions, anomalies, and quantization conditions allow the M2-brane and the M5-brane to support, in a natural way, structures beyond Spin on their worldvolumes. The main examples are twisted String structures. This also extends to…