Branes and the dynamics of QCD

A brane configuration is described that is relevant to understanding the dynamics of N = 1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. Confinement and spontaneous breaking of a discrete chiral symmetry can be understood as consequences of the topology of the brane. Because of the symmetry breaking, there can be domain walls separating different vacua; the QCD string can end on such a domain wall. The model in which these properties can be understood semiclassically does not coincide with supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory but is evidently in the same universality class. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.