Brane-antibrane systems and the thermal life of neutral black holes

A brane-antibrane model for the entropy of neutral black branes is developed, following on from the work of Danielsson, Guijosa, and Kruczenski [J. High Energy Phys. 09, 011 (2001); Rev. Mex. Fis. 49S2, 61 (2003)]. The model involves equal numbers of Dp-branes and anti-Dp-branes, and arbitrary angular momenta, and covers the cases p=0,1,2,3,4. The thermodynamic entropy is reproduced by the strongly coupled field theory, up to a power of 2. The strong-coupling physics of the p=0 case is further developed numerically, using techniques of Kabat and co-workers [Nucl. Phys. B571, 419 (2000); Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1426 (2001)], in the context of a toy model containing the tachyon and the bosonic degrees of freedom of the D0-brane and anti-D0-brane quantum mechanics. Preliminary numerical results show that strong-coupling finite-temperature stabilization of the tachyon is possible, in this context.