Brane

brane, an object extended in one or more spatial dimensions, which arises in string theory and other proposed unified theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity. A 0-brane is a zero-dimensional object, a point; a 1-brane is a one-dimensional object, a string; a 2-brane is a two-dimensional object, a membrane; and a p-brane is a p-dimensional object. Because some versions of string theory have 9 spatial dimensions, p-branes may exist for values of p up to 9.

In the 1980s branes were first investigated as a possible generalization of string theory, which is based on the quantization of 1-dimensional objects. Studies of the dynamics of strings in the late 1980s and early 1990s revealed that string theory itself contains a variety of branes. There are several types of branes, including the fundamental strings whose quantization defines string theory; black branes, which are solutions to Einstein’s equations that resemble black holes but are extended in some dimensions rather than spherical; and D-branes, which have the distinctive property that fundamental strings can end on them with the strings’ end points stuck to the brane.

The idea that space might have more than three dimensions goes back to the work of Finnish physicist Gunnar Nordström, who proposed a theory of gravity and electromagnetism with four spatial dimensions in 1914. German mathematician Theodor Kaluza in 1919 and Swedish physicist Oskar Klein in 1925 proposed a four-dimensional spatial theory, after Einstein’s discovery of general relativity in 1916. In general relativity, gravity arises from the shape of spacetime. Kaluza and Klein showed that with additional dimensions, other forces such as electromagnetism could arise in the same way. In theories with branes, matter might be stuck to a brane that is embedded within the higher dimensions. This raises new possibilities for understanding the laws of physics in terms of the geometry of spacetime. A surprising consequence is that the extra dimensions might be much larger than expected. Rather than being rolled up in the size of 10⁻³³ cm as in the original Kaluza-Klein theory, they might be around a size of 10⁻¹⁶ cm, large enough to be seen by particle accelerators, and if they were even larger, they could be visible in other laboratory experiments or astrophysical observations.

Branes also appear in some models of cosmological inflation in the early universe. Inflation requires a source of vacuum energy, which is naturally supplied by the rest mass of the branes, while the transition from inflation to ordinary expansion can be understood from the decay of the branes into ordinary matter and radiation.

The mathematical structures and physical principles underlying string theory are still not fully understood, but the introduction of branes has led to many advances. Most notably, unexpected coincidences between the properties of black branes and D-branes led Argentine American physicist Juan Maldacena to the 1997 discovery of anti de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) duality. This is a construction of a quantum theory of gravity, a previously unsolved problem, in terms of the well-understood Yang-Mills gauge fields of particle physics. AdS/CFT has led to unexpected connections between gravity and many other areas of physics and has resolved some long-standing puzzles in the application of quantum mechanics to black holes.

Because branes are ubiquitous in string theory, they may possibly be discovered by many routes: by particle accelerators, in observations of the early universe, and even as cosmic strings stretching across the universe today. All of these are speculative, but all of these areas will experience much improved observations.