@article{70d785e671df495dbc32918fd06afcd3,
title = "Naked singularities, topological defects and brane couplings",
abstract = "A conical defect in 2 + 1 anti-de Sitter space is a BTZ solution with a negative mass parameter. This is a naked singularity, but a rather harmless one: it is a point particle. Naturally, the energy density and the spacetime curvature have a δ-like singularity at the conical defect, but that does not give rise to any unphysical situations. Since the conical solution implies the presence of a source, applying reverse enginnering, one can identify the coupling term that is required in the action to account for that source. In that way, a relation is established between the identification operation that gives rise to the topological defect and the interaction term in the action that produces it. This idea has a natural extension to higher dimensions, where instead of a point particle (zero-brane) one finds membranes of even spatial dimensions (p-branes, with p = 2n). The generalization to other abelian and nonabelian gauge theories including (super-) gravities is fairly straightforward: the 2n-brane couples to a (2n + 1) ChernSimons form. The construction suggests a generic role for ChernSimons forms as the natural way to couple a gauge connection to a brane and avoids the inconsistency that results from the minimal coupling between a brane and a fundamental p-form field.",
keywords = "Naked singularities, brane couplings, topological defects",
author = "Edelstein, {Jos{\'e} D.} and Alan Garbarz and Olivera Mi{\v s}kovi{\'c} and Jorge Zanelli",
note = "Funding Information: AG and JZ wish to warmly thank the organizers of the meeting Quantum gravity and the foundations of physics held in honor of Prof. Mario Castagnino{\textquoteright}s 75th birthday for the opportunity to be part of a deserved homage. We would like to thank Gast{\'o}n Giribet for interesting discussions. This work is supported in part by MICINN and FEDER (grant FPA2008-01838), by Xunta de Galicia (Conseller{\'i}a de Educaci{\'o}n and grant PGIDIT10PXIB206075PR), by the Spanish Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Programme CPAN (CSD2007-00042), by a bilateral agreement MINCyT Argentina (ES/08/02) — MICINN Spain (FPA2008-05138-E), and by FONDECYT Grants 11070146, 1100755 and 7080201. A. G. was also partially supported by UBA-Doctoral Fellowship 572/08. O. M. is supported by the PUCV through the projects 123.797/2007, 123.705/2010 and MECESUP UCV0602. The Centro de Estudios Cient{\'i}ficos (CECS) is funded by the Chilean Government through the Millennium Science Initiative and the Centers of Excellence Base Financing Program of Conicyt, and by the Conicyt grant “Southern Theoretical Physics Laboratory” ACT-91. CECS is also supported by a group of private companies which at present includes Antofagasta Minerals, Arauco, Empresas CMPC, Indura, Naviera Ultragas and Telef{\'o}nica del Sur.",
year = "2011",
month = may,
day = "20",
doi = "10.1142/S0218271811019177",
language = "English",
volume = "20",
pages = "839--849",
journal = "International Journal of Modern Physics D",
issn = "0218-2718",
publisher = "World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte Ltd",
number = "5",
}