Absorption by branes and Schwinger terms in the world volume theory
Abstract
We study how coincident Dirichlet 3-branes absorb incident gravitons polarized along their world volume. We show that the absorption cross-section is determined by the central term in the correlator of two stress-energy tensors. The existence of a non-renormalization theorem for this central charge in four-dimensional N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories shows that the leading term at low energies in the absorption cross-section is not renormalized. This guarantees that the agreement of the cross-section with semiclassical supergravity, found in earlier work, survives all loop corrections. The connection between absorption of gravitons polarized along the brane and Schwinger terms in the stress-energy correlators of the world volume theory holds in general. We explore this connection to deduce some properties of the stress-energy tensor OPE's for 2-branes and 5-branes in 11 dimensions, as well as for 5-branes in 10 dimensions.
- Publication:
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Physics Letters B
- Pub Date:
- November 1997
- DOI:
- 10.1016/S0370-2693(97)01099-X
- arXiv:
- arXiv:hep-th/9708005
- Bibcode:
- 1997PhLB..413...41G
- Keywords:
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- High Energy Physics - Theory
- E-Print:
- 13 pages, latex, minor changes, version to appear in Physics Letters B