Related papers: Updated constraints on the cosmic string tension
Cosmic strings are a well-motivated extension to the standard cosmological model and could induce a subdominant component in the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), in addition to the standard inflationary component. The…
Spectra of the stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds from cosmic strings are calculated and compared with present and future experimental limits. Background spectra are calculated numerically for dimensionless string tensions G mu/c^2…
Cosmic string loops contain cusps which decay by emitting bursts of particles. A significant fraction of the released energy is in the form of photons. These photons are injected non-thermally and can hence cause spectral distortions of the…
We present the first ever calculation of cosmic microwave background CMB anisotropy power spectra from semilocal cosmic strings, obtained via simulations of a classical field theory. Semilocal strings are a type of non-topological defect…
I report on recent numerical simulations of the simplest field theory with cosmic string solutions, the Abelian Higgs model. We find that random networks of string quickly converge to a scaling solution in which the network scale length…
In a recent paper, the NANOGrav collaboration studied new physics explanations of the observed pulsar timing residuals consistent with a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB), including cosmic strings in the Nambu-Goto (NG)…
This paper is aimed at setting observational limits to the number of cosmic strings (Nambu-Goto, Abelian-Higgs, semilocal) and other topological defects (textures). Radio maps of CMB anisotropy, provided by the space mission Planck for…
We present robust constraints on the stochastic gravitational waves (GWs) at Mpc scales from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. CMB constraints on GWs are usually characterized as the tensor-to-scalar ratio, assuming specifically a…
The recent evidence for a stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB) in the nanohertz band, announced by pulsar timing array (PTA) collaborations around the world, has been posited to be sourced by either a population of supermassive…
Primordial gravitational waves (GWs) with frequencies > 10^{-15} Hz contribute to the radiation density of the Universe at the time of decoupling of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The effects of this GW background on the CMB and…
We find the constraints from WMAP and SDSS data on the fraction of cosmological fluctuations sourced by local cosmic strings using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis. In addition to varying the usual 6 cosmological parameters and…
Cosmic strings generate vector and tensor modes in the B-channel of polarization, as well as the usual temperature power spectrum and E-mode polarization spectrum. We use the power spectrum obtained from high-resolution Nambu-Goto cosmic…
We present a significant improvement over our previous calculations of the cosmic string contribution to cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectra, with particular focus on sub-WMAP angular scales. These smaller scales are relevant…
Cosmic strings are topological defects which can be formed in GUT-scale phase transitions in the early universe. They are also predicted to form in the context of string theory. The main mechanism for a network of Nambu-Goto cosmic strings…
We present the first calculation of the possible (local) cosmic string contribution to the cosmic microwave background polarization spectra from simulations of a string network (rather than a stochastic collection of unconnected string…
We compute the expected strain power spectrum and energy density parameter of the stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) created by a network of long cosmic strings evolving during the whole cosmic history. As opposed to other…
We continue our studies of the evolution and cosmological consequences of current-carrying cosmic string networks, described by a charge-velocity-dependent one scale (CVOS) model. We present a detailed calculation of the effects of these…
We perform a direct search for an isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) produced by cosmic strings in the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array second data release. We find no evidence for such an SGWB, and therefore place $95\%$…
We compute the stochastic gravitational wave background generated by cosmic superstrings using a semi-analytical velocity-dependent model to describe their dynamics. We show that heavier string types may leave distinctive signatures on the…
We present a catalog of gravitational wave background (GWB) signal templates from cosmic-string networks, based on relevant models proposed in the literature. We classify templates as conventional, based on standard cosmology and Nambu-Goto…