Turbulent aspects of BMN membrane dynamics

Abstract

We investigate the large-N limit of the BMN matrix model with classical bosonic membranes which have spherical topologies and spin inside the 11-dimensional maximally supersymmetric plane-wave background. First we classify all possible M2-brane configurations based on the distribution of their components inside the SO(3)xSO(6) symmetric plane-wave spacetime. We then formulate a number of simple but very representative ansatzes of dielectric tops that rotate in this space. We examine the leading-order radial and angular/multipole stability for a wide range of these configurations. By analyzing perturbations at the next-to-leading order, we find that they exhibit the phenomenon of turbulent cascading of instabilities. Thereby, long-wavelength perturbations generate higher-order multipole instabilities through their nonlinear couplings.

53 pages, 14 figures. Matches published version