On Some Features of the M-5-Brane

This paper studies various aspects of the world volume dynamics of the M-theory five-brane, including: non-BPS solutions and solution generating symmetries; the scattering properties of world volume solutions; and the equivalence with probe brane dynamics.

We show that the field equations for the supercoordinates and the self--dual antisymmetric tensor field derived from the recently constructed kappa-invariant action for the M theory five-brane are equivalent to the equations of motion obtained in the doubly supersymmetric geometrical approach at the worldvolume component level.

This paper presents a 6d world-volume action that describes the dynamics of the M theory five-brane in a flat 11d space-time background. The world-volume action has global 11d super-Poincare invariance, as well as 6d general coordinate invariance and kappa symmetry, which are realized as local symmetries. The paper mostly considers a formulation in which general coordinate invariance is not manifest in one direction. However, it also describes briefly an alternative formulati...

The kappa symmetry of an open M2-brane ending on an M5-brane requires geometrical constraints on the embedding of the system in target superspace. These constraints lead to the M5-brane equations of motion, which we review both in superspace and in component (i.e. in Green-Schwarz) formalism. We also describe the embedding of the chiral M5-brane theory in a non-chiral theory where the equations of motion follow from an action that involves a non-chiral 2-form potential, upon ...

The fivebrane of M theory -- the M5-brane -- is an especially interesting object. It plays a central role in a geometric understanding of the Seiberg-Witten solution of N=2 D=4 gauge theories as well as in certain new 6d quantum theories. The low energy effective action is an interacting theory of a (2,0) tensor multiplet. The fact that this multiplet contains a two-form gauge field with a self-dual field strength poses special challenges. Recent progress in addressing those ...

The dynamics of a probe M5-brane, embedded as a hypersurface in eleven-dimensional Minkowski spacetime, is described by a six-dimensional world-volume theory. This theory has a variety of interesting symmetries some of which are obscure in the Lagrangian formulation of the theory. However, as summarized in this review, an alternative approach is to construct all of its on-shell tree-level scattering amplitudes. This enables understanding all of the symmetries in a satisfying ...

In this note we study the puzzle posed by two M5-branes intersecting on a string (or equivalently, a single M5-brane wrapping a holomorphic four-cycle in C^4). It has been known for a while that this system is different from all other configurations built using self-intersecting M-branes; in particular the corresponding supergravity solution exhibits various curious features which have remained unexplained. We propose that the resolution to these puzzles lies in the existence...

We study the world-volume effective action of an exotic five-brane, known as the M-theory 5${}^3$-brane (M5${}^3$-brane) in eleven dimensions. The supermultiplet of the world-volume theory is the $\mathcal{N} = (2, 0)$ tensor multiplet in six dimensions. The world-volume action contains three Killing vectors $\hat{k}_{\hat{I}} {}^M \ (\hat{I} =1,2,3)$ associated with the $U(1)^3$ isometry. We find the effective T-duality rule for the eleven-dimensional backgrounds that transf...

We discuss low-energy heterotic M-theory with five-branes in four and five dimensions and its application to moving brane cosmology.

We present an attempt to formulate an action for the worldvolume theory of a single M5-brane, based on the splitting of the six worldvolume directions into 2+4, which breaks manifest Lorentz invariance from $SO(1,5)$ to $SO(1,1)\times SO(4)$. To this end, an action for the free six--dimensional (2,0) chiral tensor multiplet, and separately, a nonlinearly interacting chiral 2-form action are constructed. By studying the Lagrangian formulation for the chiral 2-form with 2+4 spl...