ar X iv : h ep - t h / 95 11 09 6 v 1 1 4 N ov 1 99 5 UTS – DFT – 95 – 10 Membrane Vacuum as a Type II

We study a functional field theory of membranes coupled to a rank–three tensor gauge potential. We show that gauge field radiative corrections lead to membrane condensation which turns the gauge field into a massive spin–0 field. This is the Coleman–Weinberg mechanism for membranes. An analogy is also drawn with a type–II superconductor. The ground state of the system consists of a two–phase medium in which the superconducting background condensate is “pierced” by four dimensional domains, or “bags” , of non superconducting vacuum. Bags are bounded by membranes whose physical thickness is of the order of the inverse mass acquired by the gauge field.