A microscopic description of absorption in high-energy string-brane collisions

Abstract

We study the collision of a highly energetic light closed string off a stack of Dp-branes at (sub)string-scale impact parameters and in a regime justifying a perturbative treatment. Unlike at larger impact parameters — where elastic scattering and/or tidal excitations dominate — here absorption of the closed string by the brane system, with the associated excitation of open strings living on it, becomes important. As a first step, we study this phenomenon at the disk level, in which the energetic closed string turns into a single heavy open string at rest whose particularly simple properties are described.