Related papers: Constraints on Brane Inflation and Cosmic Strings
String models can produce successful inflationary scenarios in the context of brane collisions and in many of these models cosmic strings may also be produced. In scenarios such as KKLMMT the string contribution is naturally predicted to be…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of inflationary scenarios based on string theory. Inflation is a brief period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe which gives natural explanations for problems of the Standard Big Bang…
We use analytic calculations of the post-recombination gravitational effects of cosmic strings to estimate the resulting CMB power spectrum, bispectrum and trispectrum. We place a particular emphasis on multipole regimes relevant for…
The network of cosmic strings generated in a phase transition during inflation enters the scaling regime later than that of usual strings. If it occurs after the recombination, temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background…
We study a new framework for brane-antibrane inflation where moduli stabilisation relies purely on perturbative corrections to the effective action. This guarantees that the model does not suffer from the eta-problem. The inflationary…
In light of the recent Planck 2015 results for the measurement of the CMB anisotropy, we study simple inflationary models in the context of the Gauss-Bonnet brane-world cosmology. The brane-world cosmological effect modifies the power…
We study a string theory inspired model for hybrid inflation in the context of a brane-antibrane system partially compactified on a compact submanifold of (a caricature of) a Calabi-Yau manifold. The interbrane distance acts as the…
We analyse the implications of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) results for a braneworld tachyonic model of inflation. We find that WMAP bounds on $n_s$ allow us to constrain significantly the parameter space of the model; in…
We use cosmic microwave background (CMB) data from the 9-year WMAP release to derive constraints on monodromy inflation, which is characterized by a linear inflaton potential with a periodic modulation. We identify two possible periodic…
We find successful models of D-brane/anti-brane inflation within a string context. We work within the GKP-KKLT class of type IIB string vacua for which many moduli are stabilized through fluxes, as recently modified to include `realistic'…
We confront the predicted effects of hybrid inflationary models on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) with three years of Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) observations. Using model selection, we compare the ability of a simple…
Recent Planck measurements show some CMB anomalies on large angular scales, which confirms the early observations by WMAP. We show that an inflationary model, in which before the slow-roll inflation the Universe is in a superinflationary…
Data on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are discriminating between different models of inflation, disfavoring simple monomial potentials whilst being consistent with models whose predictions resemble those of the Starobinsky $R + R^2$…
We present updated constraints on cosmic string and superstring parameters derived from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. The constraints are obtained via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analyses of the full \textit{Planck}…
We analyse the implications of the Planck data for cosmic inflation. The Planck nominal mission temperature anisotropy measurements, combined with the WMAP large-angle polarization, constrain the scalar spectral index to $n_s = 0.9603 \pm…
We propose a new way of obtaining slow-roll inflation in the context of higher dimensional models motivated by string and M theory. In our model, all extra spatial dimensions are orbifolded. The initial conditions are taken to be a hot…
We investigate the observational signatures of three models of the early Universe in the $B$-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. In addition to the standard single field inflationary model, we also consider…
We report on the implications for cosmic inflation of the 2018 Release of the Planck CMB anisotropy measurements. The results are fully consistent with the two previous Planck cosmological releases, but have smaller uncertainties thanks to…
Planck data have been used to provide stringent new constraints on cosmic strings and other defects. We describe forecasts of the CMB power spectrum induced by cosmic strings, calculating these from network models and simulations using…
Attempts to connect string theory with astrophysical observation are hampered by a jargon barrier, where an intimidating profusion of orientifolds, Kahler potentials, etc. dissuades cosmologists from attempting to work out the astrophysical…