Related papers: String Cosmology: from the Early Universe to Today
A review is attempted of physical motivations, theoretical and phenomenological aspects, as well as outstanding problems, of the pre-big bang scenario in string cosmology.
Exact string solutions are presented, where moduli fields are varying with time. They provide examples where a dynamical change of the topology of space is occurring. Some other solutions give cosmological examples where some dimensions are…
Towards the end of the brane inflationary epoch in the brane world, cosmic strings (but not texture, domain walls or monopoles) are copiously produced during brane collision. These cosmic strings are D$p$-branes with $(p-1)$ dimensions…
Brane inflation in superstring theory predicts that cosmic strings (but not domain walls or monopoles) are produced towards the end of the inflationary epoch. Here, we discuss the production, the spectrum and the evolution of such cosmic…
Super--inflation driven by dilaton/moduli kinetic energy is naturally realized in compactified string theory. Discussed are selected topics of recent development in string inflationary cosmology: kinematics of super-inflation, graceful exit…
We investigate moduli field dynamics in supergravity/M-theory like set ups where we turn on fluxes along some or all of the extra dimensions. As has been argued in the context of string theory, we observe that the fluxes tend to stabilize…
This is a short review of string cosmology. We wish to connect string-scale physics as closely as possible to observables accessible to current or near-future experiments. Our possible best hope to do so is a description of inflation in…
A natural consequence of string theory is a non-commutative structure of space-time on microscopic scales. The existence of a minimal length, and a modification of the effective field theory are two consequences of this space-time…
Making use of the wealth of new observational data coming from the sky it is possible to constrain particle physics theories beyond the Standard Model. One way to do this is illustrated in this article: a subset of theories admits cosmic…
We review the existence, formation and properties of cosmic strings in string theory, the wide variety of observational techniques that are being employed to detect them, and the constraints that current observations impose on string theory…
String theory can (in principle) describe gravity at all curvature scales, and can be applied to cosmology to look back in time beyond the Planck epoch. The duality symmetries of string theory suggest a cosmological picture in which the…
The quest to understand the nature of dark matter and dark energy motivates a deep exploration into axion physics, particularly within the framework of string theory. Axions, originally proposed to solve the strong CP problem, emerge as…
In cosmological models where local cosmic strings are formed at the end of a period of inflation, the perturbations are seeded both by the defects and by the quantum fluctuations. In a subset of these models, for example those based on…
In this talk I discuss recent developments in moduli stabilisation, SUSY breaking and chiral D-brane models together with several interesting features of cosmological models built in the framework of type IIB string compactifications. I…
The topic of cosmic strings provides a bridge between the physics of the very small and the very large. They are predicted by some unified theories of particle interactions. If they exist, they may help to explain some of the largest-scale…
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,…
Inflationary cosmology has provided a predictive and phenomenologically very successful scenario for early universe cosmology. Attempts to implement inflation using scalar fields, however, lead to models with serious conceptual problems. I…
Following the 2015 Planck release, we briefly comment on the status and some ongoing opportunities in the interface between inflationary cosmology, string theory, and CMB data. The constraints in the $r$-$n_s$ plane introduce a new…
We construct a string-inspired nonsingular cosmological scenario in which an inflaton field is driven up the potential before the graceful exit by employing a low-energy string effective action with an orbifold compactification. This sets…
It is widely believed that string theory easily allows for a QCD axion in the cosmologically favoured mass range. The required small decay constant, $f_a\ll M_P$, can be implemented by using a large compactification volume. This points to…