What is "supermembranes"

n. (plural of supermembrane English)

Supermembranes are hypothesized objects that live in the 11 dimensional theory called M-Theory and should also exist in 11 dimensional supergravity. Supermembranes are a generalisation of superstrings to another dimension. Supermembranes are 2-dimensional surfaces. For example they can be spherical or shaped like a torus. As in superstring theory the vibrations of the supermembranes correspond to different particles. Supermembranes also exhibit a symmetry called supersymmetry without which the vibrations would only correspond to bosons and not fermions.