Quantization of strings and branes coupled to BF theory

Baez, John C.; Perez, Alejandro
Bibliographical reference

eprint arXiv:gr-qc/0605087

Advertised on:
5
2006
Number of authors
2
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
16
Refereed citations
14
Description
BF theory is a topological theory that can be seen as a natural generalization of 3-dimensional gravity to arbitrary dimensions. Here we show that the coupling to point particles that is natural in three dimensions generalizes in a direct way to BF theory in d dimensions coupled to (d-3)-branes. In the resulting model, the connection is flat except along the membrane world-sheet, where it has a conical singularity whose strength is proportional to the membrane tension. As a step towards canonically quantizing these models, we show that a basis of kinematical states is given by `membrane spin networks', which are spin networks equipped with extra data where their edges end on a brane.