Topological Selection of World Manifolds for a P-Brane in a BF--Field

Abstract

We study the interaction between a $p$-brane and $BF$ system constituted by a $(p+1)$-form and a $n-(p+2)$-form B with a metric independent action on a manifold $M^n$. We identify the allowed $(p+1)$-world manifolds sweeped by the $p$-brane as those restricted by the topological condition of being the boundaries of chains in $M^n$. We find the general solutions of the equation of motion for the field configurations. The solutions for the $B$ field are closely related to the external field configurations that describe the defects needed for the computation of soliton correlation functions.The particular cases of the particle and string evolution are discussed with some detail.