Related papers: Introduction to Superstring Cosmology
Physical processes related to cosmological first-order phase transitions are discussed and reviewed in this introductory part of dissertation. I first describe cosmological phase transitions on a general level, concentrating on bubble…
There have been many remarkable developments in our understanding of superstring theory in the past few years, a period that has been described as ``the second superstring revolution.'' Several of them are discussed here. The presentation…
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…
A very quick introduction to the bosonic string, conformal field theory, the superstring and geometry. No background in quantum field theory is assumed and the omissions are vast. Based on four lectures at the 2024 Physical Mathematics of…
We introduce a very early universe model based on the thermodynamics of a gas of closed strings in a background which is non-perturbative in $\alpha'$. Upon considering the fully $\alpha'$-corrected equations extended to include certain…
Supersymmetry breaking in string theory is expected to occur when moduli fields acquire non-trivial expectation values. In the early universe these fields start out displaced from their final destinations. I present some recent ideas about…
If string theory controls physics at the string scale, the dynamics of the early universe before the GUT era will be governed by the low-energy string equations of motion. Studying these equations for FRW spacetimes, we find that depending…
These are extended notes of a series of lectures given at the XIth Brazilian School of Cosmology and Gravitation. They provide a selection of topics at the intersection of particle and astrophysics. The first part gives a short introduction…
From theoretical point of view and not being in contradiction with current observational data, the cosmic strings should have fundamentally different origin and are characterized by wide range of energies. The paper is devoted to search for…
Cosmic strings, a hot subject in the 1980's and early 1990's, lost its appeal when it was found that it leads to inconsistencies in the power spectrum of the measured cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies. However,…
These lectures review certain topological defects and aspects of their cosmology. Unconventional material includes brief descriptions of electroweak defects, the structure of domain walls in non-Abelian theories, and the spectrum of…
This is a set of lectures given at the 99' Cargese Summer School: Particle Physics : Ideas and Recent Developments. They contain a pedestrian exposition of recent theoretical progress in non-perturbative field theory and string theory based…
We review the properties and evolution of strings networks containing both a spectrum of string tensions as well as Y-junctions, namely a point at which three different strings meet. Such a situation is expected in cosmic superstring…
Cosmic strings are linear concentrations of energy that may be formed at phase transitions in the very early universe. At one time they were thought to provide a possible origin for the density inhomogeneities from which galaxies eventually…
The existence of a scaling evolution for cosmic string loops in an expanding universe is demonstrated for the first time by means of numerical simulations. In contrast with what is usually assumed, this result does not rely on any…
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…
Modern cosmology has created a tight link between particle physics / field theory and a wealth of new observational data on the structure of the Universe. These lecture notes focus on some of the most important aspects concerning the…
We briefly review three aspects of string cosmology: (1) the ``stochastic'' approach to the pre-big bang scenario, (2) the presence of chaos in the generic cosmological solutions of the tree-level low-energy effective actions coming out of…
This article, written for Scolarpedia, provides a brief introduction into the subject of cosmic strings, together with a review of their main properties, cosmological evolution and observational signatures.
Research in cosmology traditionally divided into two separate lines. On the one hand was the search for initial conditions: the cosmological parameters H, Omega, Omega_b, and Lambda, and the power spectrum P(k). On the other hand was the…