Inter-Brane Potential and the Decay of a non-BPS-D-brane to Closed Strings

Abstract

We calculate the potential for $Dp-\Dbar p$ pair and show that the coincident $Dp-\Dbar p$ system has $(11-p)$ tachyonic modes, with $(9-p)$ of them due to radiative corrections. We propose that the decay width of an unstable non-BPS-$Dp$-brane to closed strings is given by the imaginary part of the one-loop contribution to the effective potential of the open string tachyon mode.