Profiling the Brane Drain in a Nonsupersymmetric Orbifold

Abstract

We study D-branes in a nonsupersymmetric orbifold of type C^2/Γ, perturbed by a tachyon condensate, using a gauged linear sigma model. The RG flow has both higgs and coulomb branches, and each branch supports different branes. The coulomb branch branes account for the ``brane drain'' from the higgs branch, but their precise relation to fractional branes has hitherto been unknown. Building on the results of hep-th/0403016 we construct, in detail, the map between fractional branes and the coulomb/higgs branch branes for two examples in the type 0 theory. This map depends on the phase of the tachyon condensate in a surprising and intricate way. In the mirror Landau-Ginzburg picture the dependence on the tachyon phase is manifested by discontinuous changes in the shape of the D-brane.

57 pages, 17 color figures; harvmac