Calibrations and Intersecting Branes

Abstract

We investigate the solutions of Nambu-Goto-type actions associated with calibrations. We determine the supersymmetry preserved by these solutions using the contact set of the calibration and examine their bulk interpretation as intersecting branes. We show that the supersymmetry preserved by such solutions is closely related to the spinor singlets of the subgroup $G$ of $Spin (9,1)$ or $Spin (10,1)$ that rotates the tangent spaces of the brane. We find that the supersymmetry projections of the worldvolume solutions are precisely those of the associated bulk configurations. We also investigate the supersymmetric solutions of a Born-Infeld action. We show that in some cases this problem also reduces to counting spinor singlets of a subgroup of $Spin (9,1)$ acting on the associated spinor representations. We also find new worldvolume solutions which preserve 1/8 of the supersymmetry of the bulk and give their bulk interpretation.