Topological field theory and second-quantized five-branes Original Research Article

We construct the six-dimensional topological field theory appropriate to describe the ground-state configurations of D5-branes. A close examination on the degenerations of D5-branes gives us the physical observables which can be regarded as the Poincaré duals of the cycles of the moduli space. These observables are identified with the creation operators of the bound states of D5-branes and lead to the second quantization of five-branes. This identification of the bound states with the cycles also provides their topological stability and suggests that the bound states of five-branes have internal structures. The partition function of the second-quantized five-branes is also discussed.