Note on orbit space of G membranes

Abstract

The motion of test membranes on which the group $G$ of isometries of a spacetime $M$ acts has been considered in general settings. It has been shown that the configuration of Nambu-Goto membranes is described by the Nambu-Goto membranes in the quotient manifold $M/G$ with an appropriate projected metric if (i) $G$ is Abelian, (ii) $G$ is semisimple and compact, or (iii) the orthogonal distribution of the orbit of $G$ is integrable, but in general not. It has also been shown that a similar result holds when the membranes couple with scalar maps or differential form fields.