A new approach to the classical and quantum dynamics of branes

Abstract

It is shown that the Dirac–Nambu–Goto brane can be described as a point particle in an infinite-dimensional brane space with a particular metric. This suggests a generalization to brane spaces with arbitrary metric, including the “flat” metric. Then quantization of such a system is straightforward: it is just like quantization of a bunch of noninteracting particles. This leads us to a system of a continuous set of scalar fields. For a particular choice of the metric in the space of fields we find that the classical Dirac–Nambu–Goto brane theory arises as an effective theory of such an underlying quantum field theory. Quantization of branes is important for the brane world scenarios, and thus for “quantum gravity.”