Tachyon kinks on non-BPS D-branes

We consider solitonic solutions of the DBI tachyon effective action for a non-BPS brane. When wrapped on a circle, these solutions are regular and have a finite energy. We show that in the decompactified limit, these solitons give Sen's infinitely thin finite energy kink-interpreted as a BPS brane-provided that some conditions on the potential hold. In particular, if for large T the potential is exponential, V = e(-Ta), then Sen's solution is only found for a < 1. For power-law potentials V = 1/T-b, one must have b > 1. If these conditions are not satisfied, we show that the lowest energy configuration is the unstable tachyon vacuum with no kinks. We examine the stability of the solitons and the spectrum of small perturbations. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.