Penrose limit and NCYM theories in diverse dimensions

Abstract

We obtain the Penrose limit of NCYM theories in dimensions $3 \leq d \leq 6$ which originate from (D$(p-2)$, D$p$) supergravity bound state configurations for $2 \leq p \leq 5$ in the so-called NCYM limit. In most cases the Penrose limit does not lead to solvable string theories except for six-dimensional NCYM theory. We obtain the masses of various bosonic coordinates and observe that they are light-cone time dependent and their squares can be negative as has also been observed in other cases in the literature. When the non-commutative effect is turned off we recover the results of Penrose limit of ordinary D$p$-branes in the usual YM limit. We point out that for $d = 6$ NCYM theory, there exists another null geodesic in the neighborhood of which the Penrose limit leads to a solvable string theory. We briefly discuss the quantization of this theory and show that this pp-wave background is half supersymmetric.