Related papers: Comment on "More Axions from Strings''
We study the stability of superconducting strings in a U(1)_{local} x U(1)_{global} model coupled via a gauge field interaction term to U(1) Abelian-Higgs strings. The effect of the interaction on current stability is numerically…
An analytic model of long string network evolution, recently developed by the authors, is presented in detail, and modified to describe string loop evolution. By treating the average string velocity, as well as the characteristic…
Axions constitute a well-motivated dark matter candidate, and if PQ symmetry breaking occurred after inflation, it should be possible to make a clean prediction for the relation between the axion mass and the axion dark matter density. We…
The string axion may provide the most attractive solution to the strong CP problem in QCD. However, the axion energy density easily exceeds the dark matter density in the present universe due to a large decay constant around $10^{16}$ GeV,…
We study the structure of cosmic strings produced at the breaking of an anomalous U(1) gauge symmetry present in many superstring compactification models. We show that their coupling with the axion necessary in order to cancel the anomalies…
We explore the possibility of solving the dark energy and the coincidence problems by postulating the massless sector of closed strings. This sector constitutes the gravitational multiplet of string theory and, when applied to…
We study the formation and evolution of an interconnected string network in large-scale field-theory numerical simulations, both in flat spacetime and in expanding universe. The network consists of gauge U(1) strings of two different kinds…
Motivated by recent developments in superstring theory in the cosmological context, we examine a field theory which contains string networks with 3-way junctions. We perform numerical simulations of this model, identify the length scales of…
Axions, periodic scalar fields coupled to gauge fields through the instanton density, have a rich variety of higher-form global symmetries. These include a two-form global symmetry, which measures the charge of axion strings. As we review,…
A generic prediction of string theory is the existence of many axion fields. It has recently been argued that many of these fields should be light and, like the well known QCD axion, lead to observable cosmological consequences. In this…
We study axion strings of hyperlight axions coupled to photons. Hyperlight axions -- axions lighter than Hubble at recombination -- are a generic prediction of the string axiverse. These axions strings produce a distinct quantized…
String theory realisations of the QCD axion are often said to belong to the anthropic window where the decay constant is around the GUT scale and the initial misalignment angle has to be tuned close to zero. In this paper we revisit this…
In our previous work, we found new types of the cosmic string solutions in the Abelian-Higgs model with an enhanced $U(1)$ global symmetry. We dubbed those solutions as the compensated/uncompensated strings. The compensated string is…
Global string networks may be relevant in axion production in the early Universe, as well as other cosmological scenarios. Such networks contain a large hierarchy of scales between the string core scale and the Hubble scale, log(f/H) around…
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…
String theories suggest the existence of a plethora of axion-like fields with masses spread over a huge number of decades. Here we show that these ideas lend themselves to a model of quintessence with no super-Planckian field excursions and…
The quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion may solve the strong CP problem and explain the dark matter (DM) abundance of our Universe. The axion was originally proposed to arise as the pseudo-Nambu Goldstone boson of global $\mathrm{U}(1)_{\rm…
Lattice regularizations of the bosonic string allow no tachyons. This has often been viewed as the reason why these theories have never managed to make any contact to standard continuum string theories when the dimension of spacetime is…
We investigate the properties of global cosmic string networks as a function of the ratio of string tension to Goldstone-field coupling, and as a function of the Hubble damping strength. Our results show unambiguously that the string…
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…