Graviton absorption by non-BPS branes

We consider the behaviour of neutral non-BPS branes probed by scalars and g ravitons. We show that the naked singularity of the non-BPS branes is a rep ulson absorbing no incoming radiation. The naked singularity is surrounded by an infinite potential well breaking the unitarity of the scattering S-ma trix. We compute the absorption cross section which is infrared divergent. In particular this confirms that gravity does not decouple for the non-BPS branes. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.