Related papers: Edge Detection, Cosmic Strings and the South Pole …
We study the deflection of light in the background of a "wiggly" cosmic string, and investigate whether it is possible to detect cosmic strings by means of weak gravitational lensing. For straight strings without small-scale structure there…
Cosmic strings were postulated by Kibble in 1976 and, from a theoretical point of view, their existence finds support in modern superstring theories, both in compactification models and in theories with extended additional dimensions. Their…
Overall, brane inflation is compatible with the recent analysis of the WMAP data. Here we explore the constraints of WMAP and 2dFGRS data on the various brane inflationary scenarios. Brane inflation naturally ends with the production of…
The hot gas in clusters of galaxies creates a distinctive spectral distortion in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. The spectral signature of the SZ can be used to measure the CMB temperature at…
Cosmic string loops lead to nonlinear baryon overdensities at early times, even before the time which in the standard LCDM model corresponds to the time of reionization. These overdense structures lead to signals in 21cm redshift surveys at…
In this note we construct self-dual cosmic strings from a gauge field theory with a generalized linear formation of potential energy density. By integrating the Einstein equation, we obtain a nonlinear elliptic equation which is equal with…
The rotational kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (rkSZ) signal, imprinted on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by the gaseous halos (spinning "atmospheres") of foreground galaxies, would be a novel probe of galaxy formation. Although the…
Recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies by BOOMERANG and MAXIMA collaborations have tightened the observational constraints on theories of structure formation. They disagree with the predictions of…
Pulsar timing data used to provide upper limits on a possible stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB). However, the NANOGrav Collaboration has recently reported strong evidence for a stochastic common-spectrum process, which we…
Future CMB experiments have the potential to probe the density of relativistic species at the sub-percent level. Sensitivity at this level allows light thermal relics to be detected up to arbitrarily high decoupling temperatures.…
By using a simple analytical model based on counting random multiple impulses inflicted on photons by a network of cosmic strings we show how to construct the general q-point temperature correlation function of the Cosmic Microwave…
We have searched 4.5 square degrees of archival HST/ACS images for cosmic strings, identifying close pairs of similar, faint galaxies and selecting groups whose alignment is consistent with gravitational lensing by a long, straight string.…
We show that the existence of cosmic strings can be strongly constrained by the next generation of gravitational lensing surveys at radio frequencies. We focus on cosmic string loops, which simulations suggest would be far more numerous…
We propose a new intuitive metric for evaluating the tension between two experiments, and apply it to several data sets. While our metric is non-optimal, if evidence of tension is detected, this evidence is robust and easy to interpret.…
We present a framework for detecting gravitational-wave signals lensed by cosmic strings (CSs), addressing a key gap in current searches. CSs, whose detection would provide a unique probe of high-energy physics and the early Universe,…
Cosmology motivated by string theory has been studied extensively in the recent literature. String theory is promising because it has interesting features such as unifying gravity, electromagnetic, weak and strong nuclear forces. However,…
Gravitational-wave searches for cosmic strings are currently hindered by the presence of detector glitches, some classes of which strongly resemble cosmic string signals. This confusion greatly reduces the efficiency of searches. A…
Cosmic superstrings of string theory differ from conventional cosmic strings of field theory. We review how the physical and cosmological properties of the macroscopic string loops influence experimental searches for these relics from the…
The lack of power of large--angle CMB anisotropies is known to increase its statistical significance at higher Galactic latitudes, where a string--inspired pre--inflationary scale $\Delta$ can also be detected. Considering the Planck 2015…
We introduce a pixel space method to detect dipole modulation or hemispherical power asymmetry in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization. The method relies on the use of squared total polarized flux whose ensemble average picks…