Quenched, minisuperspace, bosonic p-brane propagator - art. no. 026003

We borrow the minisuperspace approximation from quantum cosmology and the q uenching approximation from QCD in order to derive a new form of the bosoni c p-brane propagator. In this new approximation we obtain an exact descript ion of both the collective mode deformation of the brane and the center of mass dynamics in the target space time. The collective mode dynamics is a g eneralization of string dynamics in terms of area variables. The final resu lt is that the evolution of a p-brane in the quenched-minisuperspace approx imation is formally equivalent to the effective motion of a particle in a s pacetime where points as well as hypersurfaces are considered on the same f ooting as fundamental geometrical objects. This geometric equivalence leads us to define a new tension-shell condition that is a direct extension of t he Klein-Gordon condition for material particles to the case of a physical p-brane.