Open supermembranes coupled to M-theory five-branes

We consider open supermembranes in eleven dimensions in the presence of closed M-Theory five-branes. It has been shown that, in a flat space-time, the world-volume action is kappa invariant and preserves a fraction of the eleven dimensional supersymmetries if the boundaries of the membranes lie on the five-branes. We calculate the reparametrisation anomalies due to the chiral fermions on the boundaries of the membrane and examine their cancellation mechanism. We show that these anomalies cancel with the aid of a classical term in the world-volume action, provided that the tensions of the five-brane and the membrane are related to the eleven dimensional gravitational constant in a way already noticed in M-Theory. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.