Related papers: Cosmic Structure Formation with Topological Defect…
Topological defects are produced during phase transitions in the very early Universe. They arise in most unified theories of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions. These lectures focus on the role of topological defects in…
Topological defects are common in many everyday systems. In general, they appear if a symmetry is broken at a rapid phase transition. In this article, I explain why it is believed that they should have also been formed in the early universe…
Topological defects are ubiquitous in condensed-matter physics but only hypothetical in the early universe. In spite of this, even an indirect evidence for one of these cosmic objects would revolutionize our vision of the cosmos. We give…
Symmetry-breaking phase transitions are ubiquitous in condensed matter systems and in quantum field theories. There is also good reason to believe that they feature in the very early history of the Universe. At many such transitions…
Topological defects such as cosmic strings may have been formed at early-universe phase transitions. Direct tests of this idea are impossible, but the mechanism can be elucidated by studying analogous processes in low-temperature…
We demonstrate a novel mechanism for the formation of topological defects in a first order phase transition for theories in the presence of small explicit symmetry breaking terms. We carry out numerical simulations of collisions of two…
Many particle physics models of matter admit solutions corresponding to stable or long-lived topological defects. In the context of standard cosmology it is then unavoidable that such defects will form during phase transitions in the very…
Current theories of particle physics lead to the unavoidable conclusion that there must have been several phase transitions in the early universe. Further, in the context of these theories, it is possible that cosmological phase transitions…
In these lectures, I review cosmological phase transitions and the topological aspects of spontaneous symmetry breaking. I then discuss the formation of walls, strings and monopoles during phase transitions including lattice based studies…
We provide a pedagogical overview of defect models of structure formation. We first introduce the concept of topological defect, and describe how to classify them. We then show how defects might be produced in phase transitions in the Early…
We consider a perfectly homogeneous and isotropic universe which undergoes a sudden phase transition. If the transition produces topological defects, which we assume, perturbations in the geometry and the cosmic fluid also suddenly appear.…
Formation and evolution of topological defects in course of non-equilibrium symmetry breaking phase transitions is of wide interest in many areas of physics, from cosmology through condensed matter to low temperature physics. Its study in…
Topological defects are thought to be left behind by the cosmological phase transitions which occur as the universe expands and cools. Similar processes can be studied in the phase transitions which take place in the laboratory:…
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…
The potential role of cosmic topological defects has raised interest in the astrophysical community for many years now. In this set of notes, we give an introduction to the subject of cosmic topological defects and some of their possible…
When a symmetry gets spontaneously broken in a phase transition, topological defects are typically formed. The theoretical picture of how this happens in a breakdown of a global symmetry, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, is well established and…
Topological defects, in particular cosmic strings, give rise to an interesting mechanism for generating the primordial perturbations in the early Universe which are required to explain the present structure. An overview of the cosmic string…
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…
The status quo in our understanding of defect formation during a rapid transition into the broken symmetry state in condensed matter and cosmology is discussed. An observation of vortex nucleation in neutron absorption experiments in…
Topological defects can have significant cosmological consequences, so their production must be examined carefully. It is usually assumed that topological defects are produced if the temperature becomes sufficiently high, but in reality…