Absorption of dilaton partial waves by D3-branes

We calculate the leading term in the low-energy absorption cross section fo r an arbitrary partial wave of the dilaton field by a stack of many coincid ent D3-branes, We find that it precisely reproduces the semiclassical absor ption cross section of a 3-brane geometry, including all numerical factors, The crucial ingredient in making the correspondence:is the identification of the precise operators on the D3-brane world-volume which couple to the d ilaton field and all its derivatives, The needed operators are related thro ugh T-duality and the IIA/M-theory correspondence to the recently determine d M(atrix) theory expressions for:multipole moments of the 11D supercurrent . These operators have a characteristic symmetrized trace structure which p lays a key combinatorial role in the analysis for me higher partial waves. The results presented here give new evidence for an infinite family of non- renormalization theorems which are believed to exist for two-point function s in N = 4 gauge theory in four dimensions, (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V, All rights reserved.