Related papers: Probing Particle Physics from Top Down with Cosmic…
The time-dependent metric of a cosmic string leads to an effective interaction between the string and photons - the "gravitational Aharonov-Bohm" effect -- and causes cosmic strings to emit light. We evaluate the radiation of pairs of…
String theory provides the only consistent framework so far that unifies all interactions including gravity. We discuss gravity and cosmology in string theory. Conventional notions from general relativity like geometry, topology etc. are…
The deep imaging of the field of an observed lensing event by a cosmic string reveals many additional lensing events. We study the statistics of such string lensing. We derive explicit expressions for the distributions of image separations…
Minkowski Functionals are a powerful tool for analyzing large scale structure, in particular if the distribution of matter is highly non-Gaussian, as it is in models in which cosmic strings contribute to structure formation. Here we apply…
Our current best guess for a unified theory of gravitation and quantum field theory (string theory) generically predicts a set of requirements for a consistently quantized theory, the Swampland criteria. Refined versions of these criteria…
Motivated by the fact that cosmological perturbations of inflationary quantum origin were born Gaussian, the search for non-Gaussianities in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies is considered as the privileged probe of…
We argue that cosmic strings with high winding numbers generally form in first-order gauge symmetry breaking phase transitions, and we demonstrate this using computer simulations. These strings are heavier than single-winding strings and…
We re-visit the production of cosmic rays by cusps on cosmic strings. If a scalar field (``Higgs'') has a linear interaction with the string world-sheet, such as would occur if there is a bosonic condensate on the string, cusps on string…
In string theory, the traditional picture of a Universe that emerges from the inflation of a very small and highly curved space-time patch is a possibility, not a necessity: quite different initial conditions are possible, and not…
String theoretical ideas might be relevant for particle physics model building. Ideally one would hope to find a unified theory of all fundamental interactions. There are only few consistent string theories in D=10 or 11 space-time…
We present a novel approach for investigating lens phenomenology of cosmic strings in order to elaborate detection strategies in galaxy deep field images. To account for the complexity of the projected energy distribution of string networks…
The possibility to detect cosmic strings -- topological defects of early Universe, by means of wave effects in gravitational lensing is discussed. To find the optimal observation conditions, we define the hyperbolic-shaped Fresnel…
This is a short review on strings in curved spacetimes. We start by recalling the classical and quantum string behaviour in singular plane waves backgrounds. We then report on the string behaviour in cosmological spacetimes (FRW, de Sitter,…
We present a new tool for relating theory and experiment suited for non-Gaussian theories: non-Gaussian spectra. It does for non-Gaussian theories what the angular power spectrum $C_\ell$ does for Gaussian theories. We then show how…
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.
Particle physics has evolved in the past decade through evaluating the consequences of experimental measurements as well as exploiting theoretical tools that permit exploration of new model building and cosmological possibilities.…
Line discontinuities in cosmic microwave background anisotropy maps are a distinctive prediction of models with cosmic strings. These signatures are visible in anisotropy maps with good angular resolution and should be identifiable using…
We report on a large scale numerical study of networks of semilocal cosmic strings in flat space in the parameter regime in which they are perturbatively stable. We find a population of segments with an exponential length distribution and…
String theory axions appear to be promising candidates for explaining cosmological constant via quintessence. In this paper, we study conditions on the string compactifications under which axion quintessence can happen. For sufficiently…
In this review, a number of approaches to superstring cosmology which make use of key features which distinguish string theory from point particle theories are discussed, with particular emphasis on emergent scenarios. One motivation for…