Tachyon couplings on non-BPS D-branes and Dirac-Born-Infeld action

By explicit evaluation of certain disk S-matrix elements in the presence of background B-flux, we find coupling of two open string tachyons to gauge field, graviton, dilaton or Kalb-Ramond antisymmetric tensor on the worldvolume of a single non-BPS Dp-brane. We then propose an extension of the abelian Dirac-Born-Infeld action which naturally reproduces these couplings in field theory. This action includes non-linearly the dynamics of the tachyon field much like the other bosonic modes of the non-BPS Dp-brane. On the general grounds of gauge and T-duality transformations and the symmetrized trace prescription, we then extend the abelian action to nonabelian cases. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.