Superstring 'ending' on super-D9-brane: a supersymmetric action functional for the coupled brane system

A supersymmetric action functional describing the interaction of the fundamental superstring with the D = 10, type IIB Dirichlet super-9-brane is presented. A set of supersymmetric equations for the coupled system is obtained from the action principle. It is found that the interaction of the suing endpoints with the super D9-brane gauge field requires some restrictions for the image of the gauge field strength. When those restrictions are not imposed, the equations imply the absence of the endpoints, and the equations coincide either with the ones of the free super-D9-brane or with the ones for the free closed type IIB superstring. Different phases of the coupled system are described. A generalization to an arbitrary system of intersecting branes is discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.