Stable Non-BPS States and Their Holographic Duals

Stable non-BPS states can be constructed and studied in a variety of contexts in string theory. Here we review some interesting constructions that arise from suspended and wrapped branes. We also exhibit some stable non-BPS states that have holographic duals.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 10 .eps figures (included); based on a talk given at Strings 2000, Michiga

Anomaly Inflow on Orientifold Planes

We examine some six-dimensional orientifold models with $N = 1$ supersymmetry, which can be realised as intersecting 7-branes and 7-planes. These models are studied in the light of recent work showing that orientifold planes carry anomalous gravitational couplings on their world-volume. We show that gravitational anomalies can be locally cancelled by these new couplings at every point in the internal space, under the assumption that the anomaly residing on orientifold planes is distributed in a particular way among brane-plane and plane-plane intersections.Comment: harvmac, 12 pages (b); Some changes in wording, in order to convey more accurately what is being done; no changes in computations or formula

BPS Nature of 3-String Junctions

We study BPS-saturated classical solutions for the world-sheet theory of a D-string in the presence of a point charge. These solutions are interpreted as describing planar 3-string junctions, which arise because the original D-string is deformed by the presence of the inserted charge. We compute the angles of the junctions and show that the vector sum of string tensions is zero, confirming a conjecture of Schwarz that such configurations are BPS states.Comment: 7 pages, harvmac (b), 3 figure

Constraints on "rare" dyon decays

We obtain the complete set of constraints on the moduli of N=4 superstring compactifications that permit "rare" marginal decays of 1/4-BPS dyons to take place. The constraints are analysed in some special cases. The analysis extends in a straightforward way to multi-particle decays. We discuss the possible relation between general multi-particle decays and multi-centred black holes.Comment: 27 page

Brane Constructions, Fractional Branes and Anti-deSitter Domain Walls

Compactifications of type IIB string theory on AdS5 x X5, where X5 is an Einstein space, can have one-fourth or half maximal supersymmetry for certain choices of X5. Some of these theories admit exotic domain walls arising from 5-branes wrapping 2-cycles in X5. We explore the relationship among these domain walls, fractional branes and branes stretched on intervals. World-volume fluxes in the wrapped branes play an important role in the analysis. We draw some parallels between the AdS background with exotic domain walls and N=1 supersymmetric MQCD, and identify other extended objects on the AdS side in the dual brane construction. The process of brane creation is used to give an alternate derivation of the relationship between fractional branes and branes on intervals.Comment: harvmac, 34 pages (b), 8 figures; Reference adde

Killing Spinors and Supersymmetric AdS Orbifolds

We examine the behaviour of Killing spinors on AdS5 under various discrete symmetries of the spacetime. In this way we discover a number of supersymmetric orbifolds, reproducing the known ones and adding a few novel ones to the list. These orbifolds break the SO(4,2) invariance of AdS5 down to subgroups. We also make some comments on the non-compact Stiefel manifold W{4,2}.Comment: 16 pages, harvmac (b