632 research outputs found
Finite Temperature Solitons in Non-Local Field Theories from p-Adic Strings
Non-local field theories which arise from p-adic string theories have vacuum
soliton solutions. We find the soliton solutions at finite temperature. These
solutions become important for the partition function when the temperature
exceeds m_s/g_o^2 where m_s is the string mass scale and g_o is the open string
coupling.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Caustic Formation in Tachyon Effective Field Theories
Certain configurations of D-branes, for example wrong dimensional branes or
the brane-antibrane system, are unstable to decay. This instability is
described by the appearance of a tachyonic mode in the spectrum of open strings
ending on the brane(s). The decay of these unstable systems is described by the
rolling of the tachyon field from the unstable maximum to the minimum of its
potential. We analytically study the dynamics of the inhomogeneous tachyon
field as it rolls towards the true vacuum of the theory in the context of
several different tachyon effective actions. We find that the vacuum dynamics
of these theories is remarkably similar and in particular we show that in all
cases the tachyon field forms caustics where second and higher derivatives of
the field blow up. The formation of caustics signals a pathology in the
evolution since each of the effective actions considered is not reliable in the
vicinity of a caustic. We speculate that the formation of caustics is an
artifact of truncating the tachyon action, which should contain all orders of
derivatives acting on the field, to a finite number of derivatives. Finally, we
consider inhomogeneous solutions in p-adic string theory, a toy model of the
bosonic tachyon which contains derivatives of all orders acting on the field.
For a large class of initial conditions we conclusively show that the evolution
is well behaved in this case. It is unclear if these caustics are a genuine
prediction of string theory or not.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in JHEP. Revised
derivation of eikonal equation for the DBI action. Added comments concerning
the relationship between p-adic string theory and tachyon matter. Added
second example of inhomogeneous evolution in p-adic string theory. Misleading
statements concerning caustic-free evolution removed, references adde
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