Penrose limits of Lie branes and a Nappi-Witten brane world

Mar, 2003
21 pages
Published in:
  • JHEP 06 (2003) 025
e-Print:
Report number:
  • EMPG-03-07

Citations per year

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Abstract:
Departing from the observation that the Penrose limit of AdS_3 x S^3 is a group contraction in the sense of Inonu and Wigner, we explore the relation between the symmetric D-branes of AdS_3 x S^3 and those of its Penrose limit, a six-dimensional symmetric plane wave analogous to the four-dimensional Nappi--Witten spacetime. Both backgrounds are Lie groups admitting bi-invariant lorentzian metrics and symmetric D-branes wrap their (twisted) conjugacy classes. We determine the (twisted and untwisted) symmetric D-branes in the plane wave background and we prove the existence of a space-filling D5-brane and, separately, of a foliation by D3-branes with the geometry of the Nappi--Witten spacetime which can be understood as the Penrose limit of the AdS_2 x S^2 D3-brane in AdS_3 x S^3. Parenthetically we also derive a simple criterion for a symmetric plane wave to be isometric to a lorentzian Lie group. In particular we observe that the maximally supersymmetric plane wave in IIB string theory is isometric to a lorentzian Lie group, whereas the one in M-theory is not.
  • space-time: anti-de Sitter
  • space: S(3)
  • dimension: 6
  • membrane model
  • group theory: Lorentz
  • plane wave
  • geometry
  • Penrose limit