Related papers: Cosmic String constraints from WMAP and the South …
The current suite of results from Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy experiments is fulfilling the promise of providing extraordinary levels of discrimination between cosmological models. We calculate a binned anisotropy power spectrum,…
We present the first field-theoretic calculations of the contribution made by cosmic strings to the temperature power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Unlike previous work, in which strings were modeled as idealized…
Inflation provides a unified paradigm for understanding the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the flatness problem, and the origin of large-scale structure. Although the physics responsible for inflation is not yet well…
The number of cosmic strings in the observable universe is relevant in determining the probability of detecting such cosmic defects through their gravitational signatures. In particular, we refer to the observation of gravitational lensing…
If they exist, networks of superconducting cosmic strings are capable of injecting copious amounts of electromagnetic energy into the background over a broad range of frequencies. We study this injection both analytically, as well as…
Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next generation of…
We briefly discuss constraints on supersymmetric hybrid inflation models and examine the consistency of brane inflation models. We then address the implications for inflationary scenarios resulting from the strong constraints on the cosmic…
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…
The tremendous experimental progress in cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropy studies over the last few years has helped establish a standard paradigm for cosmology at intermediate epochs and has…
Inflationary string cosmology backgrounds can amplify perturbations in a more efficient way than conventional inflationary backgrounds, because the perturbation amplitude may grow - instead of being constant - outside the horizon. If not…
We investigate the effect of wiggly cosmic strings on the cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropy and matter power spectrum by modifying the string network model used by Albrecht et al.. We employ the wiggly equation of state for…
I review the general aspects of cosmological parameter estimation from observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies in the framework of inflationary adiabatic models. The most recent CMB datasets are…
We explore the use of random forest and gradient boosting, two powerful tree-based machine learning algorithms, for the detection of cosmic strings in maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), through their unique Gott-Kaiser-Stebbins…
Cosmic strings provide a radically different paradigm for the formation of structure to the prevailing inflationary one. They afford some extra technical complications: for example, the calculation of the power spectrum of matter and…
Planck data have been used to provide stringent new constraints on cosmic strings and other defects. We describe forecasts of the CMB power spectrum induced by cosmic strings, calculating these from network models and simulations using…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) fluctuations at very small angular scales (less than $10'$) induced by matter sources are computed in a simplified way. The result corrects a previous formula appearing in the literature. The small…
The cosmic string scenario in an open universe is developed -- including the equations of motion, a model of network evolution, the large angular scale CMB temperature anisotropy, and the power spectrum of density fluctuations produced by…
Inflation arises in supersymmetric grand unified theories (susy GUTs) without fine tuning and cosmic strings usually form at the end of inflation. Hence both strings and inflation contribute to the density perturbations in the very early…
Considerable and ongoing effort is made to identify promising scalar field candidates in string theory to drive a cosmological period of inflation. At stake is the possibility that fundamental string parameters could be encoded in…
ABSRACT: We review recent progress on testing the hypothesis of the existence of cosmic string perturbations in microwave background maps. Using an analytical model for the string network we show that the predicted amplitude and spectrum of…