Universality of the Tachyon Potential

Abstract

Using string field theory, we argue that the tachyon potential on a D-brane anti-D-brane system in type II string theory in arbitrary background has a universal form, independent of the boundary conformal field theory describing the brane. This implies that if at the minimum of the tachyon potential the total energy of the brane antibrane system vanishes in a particular background, then it vanishes in any other background. Similar result holds for the tachyon potential of the non-BPS D-branes of type II string theory, and the D-branes of bosonic string theory.