Non-commutative tachyons

When unstable Dp-branes in type-II string theory are placed in a B-field, t he resulting tachyonic world-volume theory becomes non commutative. We argu e that for large noncommutativity parameter, condensation of the tachyon as a non-commutative soliton leads to new decay modes of the Dp-brane into (p -2)-brane configurations, which we interpret as suitably smeared BPS D(p-1) -branes. Some of these configurations are metastable. We discuss various ge neralizations of this decay process.