Flux stabilization of D-branes in a non-threshold bound state background

Abstract We study some configurations of brane probes which are partially wrapped on spheres transverse to a stack of non-threshold bound states. The latter are represented by the corresponding supergravity background. Two cases are studied: D(10− p )-branes in the background of (D( p −2), D p ) bound states and D(8− p )-branes in the (NS5, D p ) geometry. By using suitable flux quantization rules of the worldvolume gauge field, we determine the stable configurations of the probe. The analysis of the energy and supersymmetry of these configurations reveals that they can be interpreted as bound states of lower-dimensional objects polarized into a D-brane.