Geometrical dynamics of Born-Infeld objects

We present a geometrically inspired study of the dynamics of Dp-branes. We focus on the usual non-polynomial Dirac-Born-Infeld action for the worldvolume swept out by the brane in its evolution in general background spacetimes. We emphasize the form of the resulting equations of motion which are quite simple and resemble Newton's second law, complemented with a conservation law for a worldvolume bicurrent. We take a closer look at the classical Hamiltonian analysis which is supported by the ADM framework of general relativity. The constraints and their algebra are identified as well as the geometrical role they play in phase space. In order to illustrate our results, we review the dynamics of a D1-brane immersed in a AdS₃ × S³ background spacetime. We exhibit the mechanical properties of Born-Infeld objects paving the way to a consistent quantum formulation.