D-branes as Tachyon Lumps in String Field Theory

Ashoke Sen; Barton Zwiebach; Nicolas Moeller

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D-branes as Tachyon Lumps in String Field Theory

Nicolas Moeller, Ashoke Sen, Barton Zwiebach

High Energy Physics - Theory · Submitted 3 May 2000

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim We find convincing evidence that in string field theory the lump representing a D-brane is an extended object with a definite profile.

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What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.04 · states limitation 0.37 · human participants 0.01 · controlled comparison 0.04 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.98 · compares with prior results 0.57 · mentions code or data availability 0.02.

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It has been conjectured that the tachyonic lump solution of the open bosonic string field theory describing a D-brane represents a D-brane of one lower dimension. We place the lump on a circle of finite radius and develop a variant of the level expansion scheme that allows systematic account of all higher derivative terms in the string field theory action, and gives a calculational scheme that can be carried to arbitrary accuracy. Using this approach we obtain lump masses that agree with expected D-brane masses to an accuracy of about 1%. We find convincing evidence that in string field theory the lump representing a D-brane is an extended object with a definite profile. A gaussian fit to the lump gives a 6-sigma size of 9.3 \sqrt{\alpha'}. The level truncation scheme developed here naturally gives rise to an infrared and ultraviolet cut-off, and may be useful in the study of quantum string field theory.

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What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	It has been conjectured that the tachyonic lump solution of the open bosonic string field theory describing a D-brane represents a D-brane of one lower dimension.	background 1.00	0.04	0.14	speculative 0.99
s1	We place the lump on a circle of finite radius and develop a variant of the level expansion scheme that allows systematic account of all higher derivative terms in the string field theory action, and gives a calculational scheme that can be carried to arbitrary accuracy.	method 0.94	0.96	0.05	asserted 1.00
s2	Using this approach we obtain lump masses that agree with expected D-brane masses to an accuracy of about 1%.	result 1.00	0.97	0.32	asserted 0.99
s3	We find convincing evidence that in string field theory the lump representing a D-brane is an extended object with a definite profile.	result 0.85	0.96	0.51	asserted 0.84
s4	A gaussian fit to the lump gives a 6-sigma size of 9.3 \sqrt{\alpha'}.	result 1.00	0.94	0.09	asserted 1.00
s5	The level truncation scheme developed here naturally gives rise to an infrared and ultraviolet cut-off, and may be useful in the study of quantum string field theory.	future work 0.85	0.78	0.04	hedged possibility 0.98

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: method or tool 0.41 · evidence from simulation or computation 0.98.

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The paper

Original abstract

It has been conjectured that the tachyonic lump solution of the open bosonic string field theory describing a D-brane represents a D-brane of one lower dimension. We place the lump on a circle of finite radius and develop a variant of the level expansion scheme that allows systematic account of all higher derivative terms in the string field theory action, and gives a calculational scheme that can be carried to arbitrary accuracy. Using this approach we obtain lump masses that agree with expected D-brane masses to an accuracy of about 1%. We find convincing evidence that in string field theory the lump representing a D-brane is an extended object with a definite profile. A gaussian fit to the lump gives a 6-sigma size of 9.3 \sqrt{\alpha'}. The level truncation scheme developed here naturally gives rise to an infrared and ultraviolet cut-off, and may be useful in the study of quantum string field theory.

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References

Forward citations

Cited by 3 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

Analytic solution for tachyon condensation in open string field theory
hep-th 2005-11 accept novelty 8.0 of 10

An exact analytic solution of Witten's cubic open string field theory is constructed for the tachyon vacuum, and Sen's first conjecture (vacuum energy equals minus D-brane tension) is proved analytically.
Rolling Tachyon
hep-th 2002-03 accept novelty 8.0 of 10

Rolling-tachyon solutions on unstable D-branes are built by inverse Wick rotation of an exactly marginal boundary deformation, and their boundary states evolve smoothly to a finite energy density or hit a singularity ...
String Field Theory Solution for Any Open String Background
hep-th 2014-06 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

An exact classical solution of open bosonic string field theory is constructed that reproduces any time-independent open string background, including tachyon lumps and multiple D-branes.

How the literature uses it

15 arXiv papers cite this in 19 sentences

Each citing sentence is taken from the citing paper's LaTeX source and typed by Pith's classifier. A label appears at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), a contest at 0.7 or more; the quoted words are the citing authors'. How each label was checked · JSON

Papers citing it · 13 sentences without a confident label

Uses its method or tool 1 paper

In this subsection we will aim to evaluate the quantity $r ≡E_4 E_2$ numerically with the level truncation method, which has been successfully applied in various aspects of SFT in the past [ref] .

Rolling tachyon and the Phase Space of Open String Field Theory · Subleading order in $λ$ · 0.89

Compares with it 1 paper

It should be stressed, however, that (differently from the numerical analysis of [ref] ) we do not provide a way to solve the RG flow using OSFT but, less ambitiously, we explicitly show that whenever the RG flow is known on the worldsheet, a simple solution of OSFT can be written down which represents the IR fixed point of the flow, reproducing the correct coupling with on-shell closed strings.

Relevant Deformations in Open String Field Theory: a Simple Solution for Lumps · Introduction and outlook · 0.95

Cites it as support 1 paper

There has been evidence since the seminal work of Moeller, Sen and Zwiebach, [ref] , where a lower dimensional D–brane has been seen to emerge as inhomogeneous tachyon condensation in the modified level truncation scheme in Siegel gauge, that these solutions should exist.

Relevant Deformations in Open String Field Theory: a Simple Solution for Lumps · Introduction and outlook · 1.00

Cites it as background 3 papers

Following Sen's conjectures [ref] , such a solution was constructed numerically in the Siegel gauge level expansion by Moeller, Sen, and Zwiebach [ref] .

Comments on Lumps from RG flows · Introduction · 0.95
For example, in bosonic open string field theory, Sen conjectured that D$p$-branes with $p<25$ are described as unstable lump solutions [ref] and this was tested in many papers starting with [ref] [ref] [ref] .

D-brane States and Disk Amplitudes in OSp Invariant Closed String Field Theory · Introduction · 0.85
It turned out, after close scrutiny, these non-supersymmetric structures play a crucial role in understanding annihilation and production of D-branes (i.e. the descent relations among different dimensional D-branes) [ref] and in the context of cosmology [ref] .

Bound to bounce: a coupled scalar-tachyon model for a smooth bouncing/cyclic universe · Preliminary for the open string tachyon in string theory · 0.84

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