Related papers: Small Scale Behavior of Cosmic String Networks
In supersymmetric theories, cosmic strings produced in the early Universe often have a width of TeV scale, while the tension is much larger. In a scaling regime, an infinite cosmic string releases significant fraction of its energy in the…
Cosmic strings can arise in hidden sector models with a spontaneously broken Abelian symmetry group. We have studied the couplings of the Standard Model fields to these so-called dark strings in the companion paper. Here we survey the…
A novel mechanism to produce a cosmic network of fundamental superstrings based on a time-varying string tension has been recently proposed. It has been found that fundamental superstrings can grow in a kinating background driven by the…
The charge-velocity-dependent one-scale model is an extension of the canonical velocity-dependent one-scale model which explicitly incorporates additional degrees of freedom on the string worldsheet, such as arbitrary currents and charges,…
We study the impact of fragmentation on the cosmic string loop number density, using an approach inspired by the three-scale model and a Boltzmann equation. We build a new formulation designed to be more amenable to numerical resolution and…
We develop an analytic model to quantitatively describe the evolution of superconducting cosmic string networks. Specifically, we extend the velocity-dependent one-scale (VOS) model to incorporate arbitrary currents and charges on cosmic…
The string-dominated universe locally resembles an open universe, and fits dynamical measures of power spectra, cluster abundances, redshift distortions, lensing constraints, luminosity and angular diameter distance relations and microwave…
A network of cosmic strings would lead to gravitational waves which may be detected by pulsar timing or future interferometers. The details of the gravitational wave signal depend on the distribution of cosmic string loops, which are…
We study the formation of cosmic strings by confining a stochastic magnetic field into flux tubes in a numerical simulation. We use overdamped evolution in a potential that is minimized when the flux through each face in the simulation…
Cosmic strings are predicted by many field-theory models, and may have been formed at a symmetry-breaking transition early in the history of the universe, such as that associated with grand unification. They could have important…
Using a new parallel computing technique, we have run the largest cosmic string simulations ever performed. Our results confirm the existence of a long transient period where a non-scaling distribution of small loops is produced at lengths…
We study the cosmic microwave background temperature and polarisation spectra sourced by multi-tension cosmic superstring networks. First we obtain solutions for the characteristic length scales and velocities associated with the evolution…
Cosmic strings are one-dimensional topological defects which could have been formed in the early stages of our Universe. They triggered a lot of interest, mainly for their cosmological implications: they could offer an alternative to…
In these lectures, I review the current status of cosmic strings and cosmic superstrings. I first discuss topological defects in the context of Grand Unified Theories, focusing in particular in cosmic strings arising as gauge theory…
Progress on string theory in curved spacetimes since 1992 are reviewed. After a short introduction on strings in Minkowski and curved spacetimes, we focus on strings in cosmological spacetimes. The classical behaviour of strings in FRW and…
The collisions of cosmic strings loops and the dynamics of junctions formations in expanding backgrounds are studied. The key parameter controlling the dynamics of junctions formation, the cosmic strings zipping and unzipping is the…
Recent developments in cosmic strings are reviewed, with emphasis on unresolved problems.
We describe and numerically test the velocity-dependent one-scale (VOS) string evolution model, a simple analytic approach describing a string network with the averaged correlation length and velocity. We show that it accurately reproduces…
Recent developments in string duality suggest that the string scale may not be irrevocably tied to the Planck scale. Two explicit but unrealistic examples are described where the ratio of the string scale to the Planck scale is arbitrarily…
We study the evolution of abelian-Higgs string networks in numerical simulations. These are compared against a modified velocity-dependent one scale model for cosmic string network evolution. This incorporates the contributions of loop…