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Tensionless/strong-field limit of M5-brane and conformal symmetry of its bosonic body

Igor Bandos1,2, Kurt Lechner3,4, and Dmitri P. Sorokin1,3,4

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 066010 – Published 16 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/12vq-hsx1

Abstract

We obtain a tensionless limit of the M-theory 5-brane action and discuss its properties. The consistency of this limit requires that the field strength H3 of the 2-form gauge field on the M5 brane worldvolume is nonvanishing and nondegenerate, so that one can also regard it as a strong H3-field limit. The induced 6D worldvolume metric of this theory is nondegenerate in contrast to conventional tensionless (null) p-branes. We find that the tensionless M5-brane action is invariant under a super-Weyl symmetry acting on the bulk supergeometry, while in the purely bosonic case the action is invariant under an 11D target-space conformal symmetry, a property which is characteristic for the tensionless bosonic branes. Upon imposing a static gauge, which fixes worldvolume diffeomorphisms, this 11D conformal symmetry becomes a deformed 6D worldvolume conformal symmetry whose action on the worldvolume coordinates involves field dependent terms. When the transversal fluctuations of the 5-brane in the bulk are zero, the model reduces to the conformal nonlinear chiral 2-form electrodynamics considered earlier by Gibbons and West [J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 42, 3188 (2001)] and by Townsend [Proc. R. Soc. A 476, 20190863 (2020)].

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 066010– Published 16 September, 2026
  • Received 10 August 2026
  • Accepted 21 August 2026
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