K-RATIONAL D-BRANE CRYSTALS

Abstract

In this paper the problem of constructing space–time from string theory is addressed in the context of D-brane physics. It is suggested that the knowledge of discrete configurations of D-branes is sufficient to reconstruct the motivic building blocks of certain Calabi–Yau varieties. The collections of D-branes involved have algebraic base points, leading to the notion of K-arithmetic D-crystals for algebraic number fields K. This idea can be tested for D0-branes in the framework of toroidal compactifications via the conjectures of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer. For the special class of D0-crystals of Heegner type these conjectures can be interpreted as formulae that relate the canonical Néron–Tate height of the base points of the D-crystals to special values of the motivic L-function at the central point. In simple cases the knowledge of the D-crystals of Heegner type suffices to uniquely determine the geometry.