Related papers: Analytic Approaches to the Study of Small Scale St…
The gravitational lensing by long, wiggly cosmic strings is shown to produce a large number of lensed images of a background source. In addition to pairs of images on either side of the string, a number of small images outline the string…
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…
Cosmic string loops are defined by a pair of periodic functions ${\bf a}$ and ${\bf b}$, which trace out unit-length closed curves in three-dimensional space. We consider a particular class of loops, for which ${\bf a}$ lies along a line…
The formalism for computing the gravitational power radiation from excitations on cosmic strings forming a junction is presented and applied to the simple case of co-planar strings at a junction when the excitations are generated along one…
If cosmic strings are formed in the early universe, their associated loops emit gravitational waves during the whole cosmic history and contribute to the stochastic gravitational wave background at all frequencies. We provide a new estimate…
In this thesis we describe high-harmonic cosmic string loops in a general relativistic context, and study the implications of high-harmonic content for the predicted gravitational wave signal from cosmic string networks. Initially, we…
We simulate the formation of cosmic strings at the zeros of a complex Gaussian field with a power spectrum $P(k) \propto k^n$, specifically addressing the issue of the fraction of length in infinite strings. We make two improvements over…
We do a complete calculation of the stochastic gravitational wave background to be expected from cosmic strings. We start from a population of string loops taken from simulations, smooth these by Lorentzian convolution as a model of…
Cosmic strings are linear concentrations of energy that form whenever phase transitions in the early universe break axial symmetries as originally shown by Kibble. They are the result of frustrated order in the quantum fields responsible…
In this work, we consider a network of cosmic strings to explain possible deviation from \Lambda CDM behaviour. We use different observational data to constrain the model and show that a small but non zero contribution from the string…
We calculate the deflection of a light ray caused by the gravitational field of a cosmic string loop in the weak field limit and reduce the problem to a single quadrature over a time slice of the loop's world sheet. We then apply this…
After recalling a few basic concepts from cosmology and string theory, I will outline the main ideas/assumptions underlying (our own group's approach to) string cosmology and show how these lead to the definition of a two-parameter family…
We investigate the emission of vector radiation by superconducting cosmic string loops, deriving general relations to characterize the vector radiation emission efficiency, and study its impact on the evolution of loops. Building on these…
Gravitational wave observations provide unique opportunities to search for cosmic strings. One of the strongest sources of gravitational waves is discontinuities of cosmic strings, called kinks, which are generated at points of…
Cosmic strings are predicted by many Standard Model extensions involving the cosmological breaking of a symmetry with nontrivial first homotopy group and represent a potential source of primordial gravitational waves (GWs). Present efforts…
A theory for studying the dynamic scaling properties of branes and relativistic topological defect networks is presented. The theory, based on a relativistic version of the level set method, well-known in other contexts, possesses…
Cosmic strings are generically predicted in many extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. We propose a new avenue for detecting cosmic strings through their effect on the filamentary structure in the cosmic web. Using…
I use a combination of state-of-the-art numerical simulations and analytic modelling to discuss the scaling properties of cosmic defect networks, including superstrings. Particular attention is given to the role of extra degrees of freedom…
Cosmic strings are generic cosmological predictions of many extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics, such as a $U(1)^\prime$ symmetry breaking phase transition in the early universe or remnants of superstring theory. Unlike…
We describe the results of high-resolution numerical simulations of string-induced structure formation in open universes and those with a non-zero cosmological constant. For models with $\Gamma = \Omega h = 0.1 - 0.2$ and a cold dark matter…