Rolling tachyons for separated brane-antibrane systems

Abstract

We consider tachyon condensation between a D-brane and an anti-D-brane in superstring theory, when they are separated in their common transverse directions. A simple rolling tachyon solution, that describes the time evolution of the process, is studied from the point of view of boundary conformal field theory. By computing the boundary beta-functions of the system, one finds that this theory is conformal, hence corresponds to an exact solution of the string theory equations of motion. By contrast, the time-reversal-symmetric rolling tachyon is not conformal. These results put constraints on the space-time effective actions for the system.

40 pages, no figures; version 2 : published version