Relations between Non-Commutative and Commutative Spacetime1

Spacetime non-commutativity appears in string theory. In this paper, the non-commutativity in string theory is reviewed. At first we review that a Dp-brane is equivalent to a configuration of infinitely many D(p− 2)-branes. If we consider the worldvolume as that of the Dp-brane, coordinates of the Dp-brane is commutative. On the other hand if we deal with the worldvolume as that of the D(p− 2)-branes, since coordinates of many D-branes are promoted to matrices the worldvolume theory is non-commutative one. Next we see that using a point splitting reguralization gives a non-commutative D-brane, and a noncommutative gauge field can be rewritten in terms of an ordinary gauge field. The transformation is called the Seiberg-Witten map. And we introduce second class constraints as boundary conditions of an open string. Since Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions are mixed in the constraints when the open string is coupled to a NS B field, the end points of the open string is non-commutative. The review article is a part of the master thesis submitted to Chiba University e-mail: [email protected]