Stable Wrapped Branes

Abstract

We study some wrapped configurations of branes in the near-horizon geometry of a stack of other branes. The common feature of all the cases analyzed is a quantization rule and the appearance of a finite number of static configurations in which the branes are partially wrapped on spheres. The energy of these configurations can be given in closed form and the analysis of their small oscillations shows that they are stable. The cases studied include D(8-p)-branes in the type II supergravity background of Dp-branes (for p less or equal than 5), M5-branes in the M5-brane geometry in M-theory and D3-branes in a (p,q) fivebrane background in the type IIB theory. The brane configurations found admit the interpretation of bound states of strings (or M2-branes in M-theory) which extend along the unwrapped directions. We check this fact directly in a particular case by using the Myers polarization mechanism.