Related papers: Dynamics of Cosmic Necklaces
Cosmic strings, a hot subject in the 1980's and early 1990's, lost its appeal when it was found that it leads to inconsistencies in the power spectrum of the measured cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies. However,…
We investigate the evolution of infinite strings as a part of a complete cosmic string network in flat space. We perform a simulation of the network which uses functional forms for the string position and thus is exact to the limits of…
Cosmic strings have gained a great interest, since they are formed in a large class of brane inflationary models. The most interesting story is that cosmic strings in brane models are distinguished in future cosmological observations. If…
We develop a formalism for the quantization of topologically stable excitations in the 4-dimensional abelian lattice gauge theory. The excitations are global and local (Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen) strings and monopoles. The operators of…
Chiral cosmic strings are produced naturally at the end of inflation in supersymmetric models where the symmetry is broken via a D-term. Consequently in such theories, where both inflation and cosmic strings contribute to the density and…
A general formulation for describing odd-harmonic cosmic strings is developed and used to determine the self-intersection properties of high-harmonic loops. This is important because loop formation mechanisms produce high-harmonic…
We argue that cosmic strings with high winding numbers generally form in first-order gauge symmetry breaking phase transitions, and we demonstrate this using computer simulations. These strings are heavier than single-winding strings and…
This paper deals with a study of the cylindrically symmetric accretion of dark energy with equation of state $p=w\rho$ onto wiggly straight cosmic strings. We have obtained that when $w>-1$ the linear energy density in the string core…
We investigate a static, cylindrically symmetric cosmic string on the brane without a perturbative approximation. We find there could be a (large) enhancement of the (effective) string tension when the energy density at the center of the…
Rotating black holes when attached to a cosmic string have their rotational energy extracted leading to a change in its spin and mass. The spin of a black hole can be measured using various methods for an accreting black hole in an X-ray…
The properties of cosmic strings have been investigated in detail for their implications in early-universe cosmology. Although many variations of the basic structure have been discovered, with implications for both the microscopic and…
Grand unified theories of fundamental forces predict that magnetic monopoles are inevitable in the Universe because the second homotopy group of the order parameter manifold is $\mathbb{Z}$. We point out that monopoles can annihilate in…
We study cosmic strings in the complex symmetron model, a scalar-tensor theory with a spontaneously broken local $U(1)$ symmetry in low matter density regions. Using numerical simulations, we show that these strings preferentially attach to…
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…
In these lectures, I review the current status of cosmic strings and cosmic superstrings. I first discuss topological defects in the context of Grand Unified Theories, focusing in particular in cosmic strings arising as gauge theory…
We investigate scaling and correlations of the energy and momentum in an evolving network of cosmic strings in Minkowski space. These quantities are of great interest, as they must be understood before accurate predictions for the power…
A variation on the abelian Higgs model, with global SU(2) x local U(1) symmetry broken to global U(1) was recently shown by Vachaspati and Achucarro to admit stable, finite energy cosmic string solutions even though the manifold of minima…
We study the formation of cosmic strings by confining a stochastic magnetic field into flux tubes in a numerical simulation. We use overdamped evolution in a potential that is minimized when the flux through each face in the simulation…
We consider the constraints on string networks with junctions in which the strings may all be different, as may be found for example in a network of $(p,q)$ cosmic superstrings. We concentrate on three aspects of junction dynamics. First we…
We consider the decay of cosmic strings that are trapped in the false vacuum in a theory of scalar electrodynamics in 3+1 dimensions. We restrict our analysis to the case of thin-walled cosmic strings which occur when large magnetic flux…