Related papers: Semiclassical decay of topological defects
We review recent simulations of the formation of a particular class of non-topological defects known as semilocal strings during a phase transition. Semilocal strings have properties that are intermediate between topological cosmic strings…
We demonstrate that field theories involving explicit breaking of continous symmetries, incorporate two generic classes of topological defects each of which is stable for a particular range of parameters. The first class includes defects of…
We systematically analyze the decay of metastable topological defects that arise from the spontaneous breakdown of gauge or global symmetries. Quantum-mechanical tunneling rates are estimated for a variety of decay processes. The decay rate…
Cosmic strings are topological defects possibly formed in the early Universe, which may be observable due to their gravitational effects on the cosmic microwave background radiation or gravitational wave experiments. To this effect it is…
The topic of cosmic strings provides a bridge between the physics of the very small and the very large. They are predicted by some unified theories of particle interactions. If they exist, they may help to explain some of the largest-scale…
Domain walls, strings and monopoles are extended objects, or defects, of quantum origin with topologically non--trivial properties and macroscopic behavior. They are described in Quantum Field Theory in terms of inhomogeneous condensates.…
Topological defects such as cosmic strings may have been formed at early-universe phase transitions. Direct tests of this idea are impossible, but the mechanism can be elucidated by studying analogous processes in low-temperature…
Metastable cosmic strings provide a minimal and predictive origin for the stochastic gravitational-wave background reported by Pulsar Timing Array experiments. We analyse this possibility in electroweak-like dark sectors with a single-stage…
We describe a new tunneling solution for the decay of a cosmic string into a burst of gravitational waves. We find the relevant instanton and compute the tunneling rate. Locally, our solution is just an analytic continuation of the Kerr…
The spectrum of stable electrically and magnetically charged supersymmetric particles can change discontinuously due to the decay of these particles as the vacuum on the Coulomb branch is varied. We show that this decay process is well…
The interaction of defects can lead to a phenomenon of erasure. During this process, a lower-dimensional object gets absorbed and dissolved by a higher-dimensional one. The phenomenon is very general and has a wide range of implications,…
Topological defects are ubiquitous in condensed-matter physics but only hypothetical in the early universe. In spite of this, even an indirect evidence for one of these cosmic objects would revolutionize our vision of the cosmos. We give…
Key issues of classical and quantum strings in gravitational plane waves, shock waves and spacetime singularities are synthetically understood. This includes the string mass and mode number excitations, energy-momentum tensor, scattering…
If the vacuum manifold of a field theory has the appropriate topological structure, the theory admits topological structures analogous to the D-branes of string theory, in which defects of one dimension terminate on other defects of higher…
To study the time decay laws (tdl) of quasibounded hamiltonian systems we have considered two finite potential wells with oscillating walls filled by non interacting particles. We show that the tdl can be qualitatively different for…
Perturbative string amplitudes are correctly derived from the string geometry theory, which is one of the candidates of a non-perturbative formulation of string theory. In order to derive non-perturbative effects rather easily, we formulate…
The spectrum of stable electrically and magnetically charged supersymmetric particles can change discontinuously as one changes the vacuum on the Coulomb branch of gauge theories with extended supersymmetry in four dimensions. We show that…
This study analyzes the geometrical relationship between a classical string and its semi-classical quantum model. From an arbitrary $(2+1)-$dimensional geometry, a specific ansatz for a classical string is used to generate a semi-classical…
We present the simplest possible model for a semi-local string defect in which a U(1) gauged subgroup of an otherwise global SU(2) is broken to produce local cosmic strings endowed with current-carrying properties. Restricting attention to…
I review the appearance of classical integrable systems as an effective tool for the description of non-perturbative exact results in quantum string and gauge theories. Various aspects of this relation: spectral curves, action-angle…