2003/03/31 by Michael Dine, Elie Gorbatov, Igor R. Klebanov +2 · 16 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Action (physics) #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Effective action #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quartic function #String (physics) #String field theory #String theory #Tachyon #Tachyon condensation #Tachyonic field #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2004/07/034
published in Journal of High Energy Physics 2004(07), 034 (Springer Nature) · 10 pages, no figures, references added
arxiv created 2003/04/15 · openalex publication_date 2004/07/16 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Closed string tachyons have long been somewhat mysterious. We note that there is often a regime in the classical moduli space in which one can systematically compute the effective action for such fields. In this regime, the tachyon is light, and cannot be integrated out. Instead, one must consider the combined dynamics of gravitons, moduli, tachyons and other light fields. We compute the action and find that the quartic term for the tachyon is positive in the field definition where the tachyon has no derivative coupling to the radion. We study the evolution of isotropic, homogeneous configurations and find that typically the system is driven to regions where the calculation is no longer under control.