Related papers: Superconducting Cosmic Strings
Cosmic strings are one-dimensional topological defects which could have been formed in the early stages of our Universe. They triggered a lot of interest, mainly for their cosmological implications: they could offer an alternative to…
Cosmic strings are stable topological defects that may have been created at a phase transition in the early universe. It is a growing belief that, for a wide range of theoretical models, such strings may be superconducting and carry…
Cosmic strings are predicted by many field-theory models, and may have been formed at a symmetry-breaking transition early in the history of the universe, such as that associated with grand unification. They could have important…
It is possible that superstrings, as well as other one-dimensional branes, could have been produced in the early universe and then expanded to cosmic size today. I discuss the conditions under which this will occur, and the signatures of…
Cosmic strings are generic cosmological predictions of many extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics, such as a $U(1)^\prime$ symmetry breaking phase transition in the early universe or remnants of superstring theory. Unlike…
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…
We consider grand unified theories with superconducting cosmic strings and which admit the mechanism for generating primordial magnetic fields recently discussed by Vachaspati. We show that these models are severely constrained by…
Cosmic strings are linear concentrations of energy that form whenever phase transitions in the early universe break axial symmetries as originally shown by Kibble. They are the result of frustrated order in the quantum fields responsible…
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.
Cosmic strings are linear concentrations of energy that may be formed at phase transitions in the very early universe. At one time they were thought to provide a possible origin for the density inhomogeneities from which galaxies eventually…
The tracing of cosmological relics from the early string dynamics may enhance the theory and provide new perspectives on the major cosmological problems. This point is illustrated in a leading-order Bianchi-type $VII_0$ string background,…
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…
It has been speculated that cosmic string networks could produce ultra-high energy cosmic rays as a by-product of their evolution. By making use of recent work on the evolution of such networks, it will be shown that the flux of cosmic rays…
A possible signature of a class of superconducting cosmic strings trapped in the Milky Way plasma is the emission of low energy antiprotons due to baryon number violating processes on the string. We find the terrestrial flux and the energy…
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…
Cosmic superstrings are produced at the end of brane inflation. Their properties are similar to cosmic strings arising in grand unified theories. Like cosmic strings they can give rise to a primordial magnetic field, as a result of vortical…
Cosmic strings are predicted in many models beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. In models which admit strings, a network of strings will inevitably be formed in a phase transition in the early universe and will persist to the…
String cosmology aims at providing a reliable description of the very early Universe in the regime where standard-model physics is no longer appropriate, and where we can safely apply the basic ingredients of superstring models such as…
In these lectures I discuss the possibility that superstrings of cosmic length might exist and be observable. I first review the original idea of cosmic strings arising as gauge theory solitons, and discuss in particular their network…
We hypothesize that cosmic string loops are the seeds about which globular clusters accrete. Fixing the cosmic string tension by demanding that the peak in the distribution of masses of objects accreting onto string loops agrees with the…