Aspects of D-branes: From branes in motion to meson spectroscopy

We discuss various aspects of D-branes, ranging from their basic properties as extended objects within string theory to their application, via the AdS/CFT correspondence, to the physics of gauge theories. Our initial emphasis is on the description of time-dependent, yet supersymmetric, brane configurations and to this end we first provide a review of established results on D-branes. We then investigate various supersymmetric brane intersections. Motivated by the recent results on supertubes, we investigate general constraints under which parallel brane-antibrane configurations are supersymmetric. Dual descriptions of these configurations involve systems of intersecting branes in relative motion. In particular, we find new supersymmetric configurations which are not related to a static brane intersection by a boost. In these new configurations, the intersection point moves at the speed of light. We then briefly review the AdS/CFT correspondence between string and gauge theories. Our emphasis here is on the recent development of D-brane configurations that can be used to add fundamental flavour to the gauge theories. We compute the meson spectrum of an N = 2 super Yang-Mills theory with fundamental matter from its dual string theory on AdS5 x S 5 with a D7-brane probe. For scalar and vector mesons with arbitrary R-charge the spectrum is computed in closed form by solving the equations for D7-brane fluctuations; for matter with non-zero mass mq it is discrete and exhibits a mass gap of order mq/ gsN . The spectrum of mesons with large spin J is obtained from semiclassical, rotating open strings attached to the D7-brane. It displays Regge-like behaviour for J ≪gsN , whereas for J ≫gsN it corresponds to that of two non-relativistic quarks bound by a Coulomb potential.