Mass hierarchy from recoiling D-branes - art. no. 124004

Using conformal field theory methods we construct a metric that describes t he distortion of space-time surrounding a D(irichlet)-brane (solitonic) def ect after being struck by another D-brane. By viewing our four-dimensional universe as such a sl:ruck brane, embedded in a five-dimensional space-time , we argue on the appearance of a band of massive Kaluza-Klein excitations for the bulk graviton which is localized in a region of the fifth dimension determined by the inverse size of the band. The band incorporates the mass less mode (ordinary graviton) and its thickness is determined essentially b y the width of the Gaussian distribution describing the (target-space) quan tum fluctuations of the intersecting-brane configuration.