An associative and noncommutative product for the low energy effective theory of a D-brane in curved backgrounds and bi-local tields

We point out that when a D-brane is placed in an NS-NS B field background with nonvanishing field strength (H = dB) along the D-brane worldvolume, the coordinate of one end of the open string does not commute with that of the other in the low energy limit. The degrees of the freedom associated with both ends are not decoupled and accordingly, the effective action must be quite different from that of the ordinary noncommutative gauge theory for a constant B background. We construct an associative and noncommutative product star which operates on the coordinates of both ends of the string and propose a new type of noncommutative gauge action for the low energy effective theory of a Dp-brane. This effective theory is bi-local and lives in twice as large dimensions (2D = 2(p + 1)) as in the 11 = 0 case. When viewed as a theory in the D-dimensional space, this theory is nonlocal and we must force the two ends of the string to coincide. We will then propose a prescription for reducing this bi-local effective action to that in D dimensions and obtaining a local effective action. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.