Brane/anti-Brane Systems and U(N|M) Supergroup

Abstract

We show that in the context of topological string theories N branes and M anti-branes give rise to Chern-Simons gauge theory with the gauge supergroup $U(N|M)$. We also identify a deformation of the theory which corresponds to brane/anti-brane annihilation. Furthermore we show that when $N=M$ all open string states are BRST trivial in the deformed theory.