Brane Effective Actions, Kappa-Symmetry and Applications

Area of Science:

• String Theory
• Quantum Field Theory
• High Energy Physics

Background:

• Effective actions are crucial for describing low-energy physics of extended objects (branes) in string theory.
• Understanding brane symmetries, particularly kappa symmetry, is key to constructing consistent theories.
• Applications range from understanding black hole microstates to probing strongly-coupled gauge theories.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a comprehensive review of M- and D-brane effective actions.
• To detail the role of symmetries, especially kappa symmetry, in their formulation.
• To explore diverse applications, including solitons, black hole physics, and the AdS/CFT correspondence.

Main Methods:

• Green-Schwarz formulation for single M- and D-brane effective actions.
• Analysis of world volume diffeomorphisms and kappa symmetry for spacetime covariance and supersymmetry.
• Application of kappa symmetry to construct supersymmetric solitons and utilize probe approximations in AdS/CFT.

Main Results:

• Explicit construction of M- and D-brane effective actions in supergravity backgrounds.
• Identification of solitons as Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) states and their role in black hole microstate models.
• Use of D-brane probes to study strongly-coupled gauge theories via AdS/CFT, yielding insights into Wilson loops and spectra.

Conclusions:

• Brane effective actions and their symmetries provide powerful tools for theoretical physics.
• These actions offer microscopic descriptions of black holes and insights into quantum field theory dynamics.
• The review highlights the broad applicability and ongoing development of M- and D-brane theories.