M2-branes on a constant flux background

Abstract

We describe a compactified Supermembrane, or M2-brane, with 2-form fluxes generated by constant three-forms that are turned on a 2-torus of the target space $M_9\times T^2$. We compare this theory with the one describing a $11D$ M2-brane formulated on $M_9\times T^2$ target space subject to an irreducible wrapping condition. We show that the flux generated by the bosonic 3-form under consideration is in a one to one correspondence to the irreducible wrapping condition. After a canonical transformation both Hamiltonians are exactly the same up to a constant shift in one particular case. Consequently both of them, share the same spectral properties. We conclude that the Hamiltonian of the M2-brane with 2-form target space fluxes on a torus has a purely discrete spectrum with eigenvalues of finite multiplicity and it can be considered to describe a new sector of the microscopic degrees of freedom of M-theory. We also show that the total membrane momentum in the direction associated to the flux condition acquires a quantized contribution in correspondence to the flux units that have been turned on.

Latex, 15 pages, title changed, paper revised, results improved