Non-commutative Branes from M-theory

Abstract

The analysis of the worldvolume effective actions of the M-theory Kaluza-Klein monopole and 9-brane suggests that it should be possible to describe non-abelian configurations of M2-branes or M5-branes if the M2-branes are transverse to the eleventh direction and the M5-branes are wrapped on it. This is determined by the fact that the Kaluza-Klein monopole and the M9-brane are constrained to move in particular isometric spacetimes. We show that the same kind of situation is implied by the analysis of the brane descent relations in M-theory. We compute some of the non-commutative couplings of the worldvolume effective actions of these non-abelian systems of M2 and M5 branes and show that they indicate the existence of configurations corresponding to N branes expanding into a higher dimensional M-brane. The reduction to Type II brings up new descriptions of coincident D-branes at strong coupling. We show that these systems have the right non-commutative charges to describe certain expanded configurations playing a role in the framework of the AdS/CFT correspondence. Finally, we discuss the realization of non-commutative brane configurations as topological solitons in non-abelian brane-antibrane systems.