Gauge-Invariant and Gauge-Fixed D-Brane Actions

The first part of this paper presents actions for Dirichlet p-branes embedded in a flat 10-dimensional space-time. The fields of the (p+1)-dimensional world-volume theories are the 10d space-time coordinates $X^m$, a pair of Majorana-Weyl spinors $θ_1$ and $θ_2$, and a U(1) gauge field $A_μ$. The N = 2A or 2B super-Poincare group in ten dimensions is realized as a global symmetry. In addition, the theories have local symmetries consisting of general coordinate invariance of the world volume, a local fermionic symmetry (called ``kappa''), and U(1) gauge invariance. A detailed proof of the kappa symmetry is given that applies to all cases (p = 0,1, . . ., 9). The second part of the paper presents gauge-fixed versions of these theories. The fields of the 10d (p = 9) gauge-fixed theory are a single Majorana-Weyl spinor $λ$ and the U(1) gauge field $A_μ$. This theory, whose action turns out to be surprisingly simple, is a supersymmetric extension of 10d Born-Infeld theory. It has two global supersymmetries: one represents an unbroken symmetry, and the second corresponds to a broken symmetry for which $λ$ is the Goldstone fermion. The gauge-fixed supersymmetric D-brane theories with $p<9$ can be obtained from the 10d one by dimensional reduction.

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