Supersymmetric and Kappa-invariant Coincident D0-Branes

We propose a generic supersymmetric and kappa-invariant action for describing coincident D0-branes with non-abelian matter fields on their worldline. The action is shown to be in agreement with the Matrix Theory limit of the ND0-brane effective action.Comment: JHEP style, 1+8 page

Entropy of Non-Extreme Charged Rotating Black Holes in String Theory

We give the explicit expression for four-dimensional rotating charged black hole solutions of N=4 (or N=8) superstring vacua, parameterized by the ADM mass, four charges (two electric and two magnetic charges, each arising from a different U(1) gauge factors), and the angular momentum (as well as the asymptotic values of four toroidal moduli of two-torus and the dilaton-axion field). The explicit form of the thermodynamic entropy is parameterized in a suggestive way as a sum of the product of the `left-moving' and the `right-moving' terms, which may have an interpretation in terms of the microscopic degrees of freedom of the corresponding D-brane configuration. We also give an analogous parameterization of the thermodynamic entropy for the recently obtained five-dimensional rotating charged black holes parameterized by the ADM mass, three U(1) charges and two rotational parameters (as well as the asymptotic values of one toroidal modulus and the dilaton).Comment: 14 pages, uses RevTex, the revised version with minor corrections to appear in Phys. Rev.

Adding a Brane to the Brane-Anti-Brane Action in BSFT

We attempt to generalize the effective action for the D-brane-anti-D-brane system obtained from boundary superstring field theory (BSFT) by adding an extra D-brane to it to obtain a covariantized action for 2 D-branes and 1 anti-D-brane. We discuss the approximations made to obtain the effective action in closed form. Among other properties, this effective action admits solitonic solutions of codimension 2 (vortices) when one of the D-brane is far separated from the brane-anti-brane pair.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures, minor revision

Fuzzy BIon

We construct a solution of the BFSS matrix theory, which is a counterpart of the BIon solution representing a fundamental string ending on a bound state of a D2-brane and D0-branes. We call this solution the `fuzzy BIon' and show that this configuration preserves 1/4 supersymmetry of type IIA superstring theory. We also construct an effective action for the fuzzy BIon by analyzing the nonabelian Born-Infeld action for D0-branes. When we take the continuous limit, with some conditions, this action coincides with the effective action for the BIon configuration.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, reference and note adde

Counting Supertubes

The quantum states of the supertube are counted by directly quantizing the linearized Born-Infeld action near the round tube. The result is an entropy $S = 2\pi \sqrt{2 (Q_{D0}Q_{F1}-J)}$, in accord with conjectures in the literature. As a result, supertubes may be the generic D0-F1 bound state. Our approach also shows directly that supertubes are marginal bound states with a discrete spectrum. We also discuss the relation to recent suggestions of Mathur et al involving three-charge black holes.Comment: 15 pages, v2: reference corrected; v3: few corrections and explicit derivation of a relation are added to appendix

Avalanches and the Renormalization Group for Pinned Charge-Density Waves

The critical behavior of charge-density waves (CDWs) in the pinned phase is studied for applied fields increasing toward the threshold field, using recently developed renormalization group techniques and simulations of automaton models. Despite the existence of many metastable states in the pinned state of the CDW, the renormalization group treatment can be used successfully to find the divergences in the polarization and the correlation length, and, to first order in an $\epsilon = 4-d$ expansion, the diverging time scale. The automaton models studied are a charge-density wave model and a ``sandpile'' model with periodic boundary conditions; these models are found to have the same critical behavior, associated with diverging avalanche sizes. The numerical results for the polarization and the diverging length and time scales in dimensions $d=2,3$ are in agreement with the analytical treatment. These results clarify the connections between the behaviour above and below threshold: the characteristic correlation lengths on both sides of the transition diverge with different exponents. The scaling of the distribution of avalanches on the approach to threshold is found to be different for automaton and continuous-variable models.Comment: 29 pages, 11 postscript figures included, REVTEX v3.0 (dvi and PS files also available by anonymous ftp from external.nj.nec.com in directory /pub/alan/cdwfigs

Collective Dynamics of One-Dimensional Charge Density Waves

The effect of disorder on the static and dynamic behaviour of one-dimensional charge density waves at low temperatures is studied by analytical and numerical approaches. In the low temperature region the spatial behaviour of the phase-phase correlation function is dominated by disorder but the roughness exponent remains the same as in the pure case. Contrary to high dimensional systems the dependence of the creep velocity on the electric field is described by an analytic function.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

A New Cosmological Scenario in String Theory

We consider new cosmological solutions with a collapsing, an intermediate and an expanding phase. The boundary between the expanding (collapsing) phase and the intermediate phase is seen by comoving observers as a cosmological past (future) horizon. The solutions are naturally embedded in string and M-theory. In the particular case of a two-dimensional cosmology, space-time is flat with an identification under boost and translation transformations. We consider the corresponding string theory orbifold and calculate the modular invariant one-loop partition function. In this case there is a strong parallel with the BTZ black hole. The higher dimensional cosmologies have a time-like curvature singularity in the intermediate region. In some cases the string coupling can be made small throughout all of space-time but string corrections become important at the singularity. This happens where string winding modes become light which could resolve the singularity. The new proposed space-time casual structure could have implications for cosmology, independently of string theory.Comment: 28 pages, 3 figures; v2: Added new subsection relating two-dimensional model to BTZ black hole, typos corrected and references added; v3: minor corrections, PRD versio

Towards a supersymmetric non-abelian Born-Infeld theory

We define an iterative procedure to obtain a non-abelian generalization of the Born-Infeld action. This construction is made possible by the use of the severe restrictions imposed by kappa-symmetry. We have calculated all bosonic terms in the action up to terms quartic in the Yang-Mills field strength and all fermion bilinear terms up to terms cubic in the field strength. Already at this order the fermionic terms do not satisfy the symmetric trace-prescription.Comment: 9 pp. Latex, to appear in the proceedings of the Strings 2000 conferenc