Related papers: Revisiting Metastable Cosmic String Breaking
We show that metastable cosmic strings break at early times, either via finite-temperature effects or by attaching to pre-existing monopoles during network percolation. The resulting segments can be initially super-horizon in size and thus…
Many symmetry breaking patterns in grand unified theories (GUTs) give rise to cosmic strings that eventually decay when pairs of GUT monopoles spontaneously nucleate along the string cores. These strings are known as metastable cosmic…
Metastable cosmic strings provide a minimal and predictive origin for the stochastic gravitational-wave background reported by Pulsar Timing Array experiments. We analyse this possibility in electroweak-like dark sectors with a single-stage…
Metastable strings can arise from a two-step symmetry breaking chain of the type $SU(2) \to U(1) \to 1$.They can decay through quantum tunneling by nucleating a monopole-antimonopole pair, and are prominent candidates for explaining the…
We investigate cosmic strings arising from a hierarchical gauge symmetry breaking sequence, $\mathrm{SU}(2) \times \mathrm{U}(1) \rightarrow \mathrm{U}(1) \times \mathrm{U}(1) \rightarrow \mathrm{U}(1)' \rightarrow \text{Nothing}$. This…
It is shown that topologically stable cosmic strings can, in fact, appear to end or to break, even in theories without monopoles. This can occur whenever the spatial topology of the universe is nontrivial. For the case of Abelian-Higgs…
Metastable cosmic strings are a common prediction of grand unified theories and act as a source of a gravitational-wave background (GWB) that can explain the 2023 pulsar timing array (PTA) signal. In this paper, we revisit the GWB signal…
Cosmic strings are predicted in various extensions of the Standard Model, including grand unified theories. Depending on the symmetry-breaking pattern, they can be either topologically stable or metastable. Intriguingly, metastable strings…
We consider the phase transition of a string with tension $\eps_1$ to a string with a smaller tension $\eps_2$. The transition proceeds through quantum tunneling, and we calculate in arbitrary number of dimensions the pre-exponential factor…
We present the formation of metastable cosmic strings (CSs) in the context of a supersymmetric (SUSY) left-right model. The SU(2)R symmetry breaking occurs during a stage of T-model (Higgs) inflation (TI) driven by an SU(2)R triplet…
We show that a cosmic string associated with spontaneous $U(1)_R$ symmetry breaking gives a constraint for supersymmetric model building. In some models, the string can be viewed as a tube-like domain wall with a winding number…
The breaking of $U(1)_R$ symmetry plays a crucial role in modeling the breaking of supersymmetry (SUSY). In the models that possess both SUSY preserving and SUSY breaking vacua, tube-like cosmic strings called R-tubes, whose surfaces are…
Macroscopic fundamental and Dirichlet strings have several potential instabilities: breakage, tachyon decays, and confinement by axion domain walls. We investigate the conditions under which metastable strings can exist, and we find that…
We consider the phase transition of a string with tension $\eps_1$ to a string with a smaller tension $\eps_2$ at finite temperature. For sufficiently small temperatures the transition proceeds through thermally catalyzed quantum tunneling,…
The spontaneous breaking of $SO(10)$ grand unified symmetry to $SU(3)_c \times SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y \times U(1)_\chi$ yields the GUT monopole as well as a comparably heavy $U(1)_\chi$ monopole which also carries $U(1)_Y$ flux. A metastable…
Metastable cosmic strings (MSCSs) are among the best-fitting explanations of the 2023 pulsar timing array (PTA) signal for gravitational waves at nanohertz frequencies. We propose the novel possibility that a network of MSCSs generating…
We estimate the stochastic gravitational wave spectrum emitted from a network of cosmic strings in which the latter are effectively stable against breaking by monopole pair creation. The monopoles are produced at a higher scale from an…
A metastable cosmic-string network is a generic consequence of many grand unified theories (GUTs) when combined with cosmic inflation. Metastable cosmic strings are not topologically stable, but decay on cosmic time scales due to pair…
We show that stable local cosmic strings are a generic prediction of supersymmetric models where supersymmetry is broken at scales within a few orders of magnitude of the weak scale and is fed down to the observable sector by gauge…
We discuss the appearance of topological structures from the spontaneous breaking of $E_6$ to the Standard Model via its maximal subgroup $SO(10) \times U(1)_\psi$. They include dumbbells, metastable strings, as well as domain walls bounded…