Related papers: Evidence against or for topological defects in the…
We investigate which of the exotic Doppler peak features found for textures and cosmic strings are generic novelties pertaining to defects. We find that the ``out of phase'' texture signature is an accident. Generic defects, when they…
Doppler peaks in the cosmic microwave background may allow us to distinguish among the two classes of theories-inflationary models and topological defect scenarios-which attempt to explain the origin of structure formation in the universe.…
Cosmological inflation and topological defects have been considered for a long time, either in disagreement or in competition. On the one hand an inflationary era is required to solve the shortcomings of the hot big bang model, while on the…
Structure formation with topological defects is described. The main differences from inflationary models are highlighted. The results are compared with recent observations. It is concluded that all the defect models studied so far are in…
Experimental study of the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is gathering momentum. The eagerly awaited Boomerang results have lived up to expectations. They provide convincing evidence in favor of the standard paradigm:…
Recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies by BOOMERANG and MAXIMA collaborations have tightened the observational constraints on theories of structure formation. They disagree with the predictions of…
We analyse the possible contribution of topological defects to cosmic microwave anisotropies, both temperature and polarisation. We allow for the presence of both inflationary scalars and tensors, and of polarised dust foregrounds that may…
Modern cosmology provides a connection between the physics of particles and fields and observational cosmology. Making use of this link, a wealth of new observational data can be utilized to explore and constrain theories of fundamental…
I present a briefly summary of the current status of inflationary models versus topological defects scenarios, as the mechanisms which could have induced the initial density perturbations, which left an imprint on the cosmic microwave…
The very recent Boomerang results give an estimate of unprecedented precision of the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies on sub--degree scales. A puzzling feature for theoretical cosmology is the low amplitude of the second acoustic…
In the light of the recent Boomerang and Maxima observations of the CMB which show an anomalously low second acoustic peak, we reexamine the prediction by Adams et al (1997) that this would be the consequence of a 'step' in the primordial…
I discuss the current status of inflationary cosmology in light of the recent WMAP 3-year data release. The basic predictions of inflation are all supported by the data. Inflation also makes predictions which have not been well tested by…
Topological defects may play the role of the curvatons. We propose a new mechanism of generating density perturbations from cosmological defects in inflationary models. We show several examples in which defects play crucial role in…
In this work we discuss the possibility of cosmic defects being responsible for the B-mode signal measured by the BICEP2 collaboration. We also allow for the presence of other cosmological sources of B-modes such as inflationary…
Hybrid inflation within supersymmetric grand unified theories, as well as inflation through brane collisions within braneworld cosmological models, lead to the formation of one-dimensional defects. Observational data, mainly from the cosmic…
A (very) brief review of topological defects and their possible cosmic roles. I emphasize in particular that superheavy defects needed for structure formation can peacefully coexist with inflation, despite the claims to the contrary which…
The statistical properties of the primordial density perturbations has been considered in the past decade as a powerful probe of the physical processes taking place in the early universe. Within the inflationary paradigm, the properties of…
We compute the polarization power spectra for global strings, monopoles, textures and nontopological textures, and compare them to inflationary models. We find that topological defect models predict a significant (1 microK) contribution to…
The newly released Planck CMB data place tight constraints on slow-roll inflationary models. Some of commonly discussed inflationary potentials are disfavored due mainly to the large tensor-to-scalar ratio. In this paper we show that these…
We discuss relationship between inflation and various models of production of density inhomogeneities due to strings, global monopoles, textures and other topological and non-topological defects. Neither of these models leads to a…