Open-closed string correspondence: D-brane decay in curved space

This paper analyzes the effect of curved closed string backgrounds on the stability of D-branes within boundary string field theory. We identify the non-local open string background that implements shifts in the closed string background and analyze the tachyonic sector off-shell. The renormalization group flow reveals some characteristic properties, which are expected for a curved background, like the absence of a stable space-filling brane. In 3-dimensions we describe tachyon condensation processes to lower-dimensional branes, including a curved 2-dimensional brane. We argue that this 2-brane is perturbatively stable. This is in agreement with the known maximally symmetric WZW-branes and provides further support to the bulk-boundary factorization approach to open-closed string correspondence.Comment: 23 pages, harvma

Factorization Conjecture and the Open/Closed String Correspondence

We present evidence for the factorization of the world-sheet path integrals for 2d con-formal field theories on the disk into bulk and boundary contributions. This factorization is then used to reinterpret a shift in closed string backgrounds in terms of boundary de-formations in background independent open string field theory. We give a proof of the factorization conjecture in the cases where the background is represented by WZW and related models