D-Brane Actions, Intrinsic Geometry and Duality

Abstract

We discuss an alternative form of the supersymmetric D-$p$-brane action which is quadratic in derivatives of $X$ and linear in $F_{\mu \nu }$. This action involves an auxiliary worldvolume tensor and generalises the simplification of the Nambu-Goto action for $p$-branes using a symmetric metric. When the worldvolume gauge field is abelian, it appears as a Lagrange multiplier, and solving the constraint gives the dual form of the ($p+1$)-dimensional action with a $p-2$ form gauge field instead of a vector gauge field. This is illustrated by the example of the dual D-2-brane action, for which the known result is recovered.

LaTeX, 6 pages, no figures, uses crckapb.sty; one reference added. To appear in the proceedings of the 1997 Cargese Summer School "Strings, Branes and Dualities", May 26-June 14, 1997