Rolling tachyons and decaying branes

Abstract

We present new rolling tachyon solutions describing the classical decay of D-branes. Our methods are simpler than those appearing in recent works, yet our results are exact in classical string theory. The role of pressure in the decay is studied using tachyon profiles with spatial variation. In this case the final state involves an array of codimension one D-branes rather than static, pressureless tachyon matter.