D0-branes as light-front confined quarks

We argue that different aspects of light-front QCD at the confined phase can be recovered by the matrix quantum mechanics of D0-branes. The relevant matrix quantum mechanics is obtained from dimensional reduction of pure Yang–Mills theory to dimension 0+1. The aspects of QCD dynamics which are studied in correspondence with D0-branes are: (1) phenomenological inter-quark potentials, (2) the whiteness of hadrons and (3) scattering amplitudes. In addition, some other issues such as the large-N behavior, the gravity–gauge theory relation and also a possible justification for involving “non-commutative coordinates” in the study of QCD bound states are discussed. Received: 12 January 2001 / Published online: 6 April 2001