Related papers: Topological Defects in Contracting Universes
The coupling of a stringlike fluid with ordinary matter and gravity may lead to a closed Universe with the dynamic of an open one. This can provide an alternative solution for the age and horizon problems. A study of density perturbations…
We study the effect of free streaming in a universe with cosmic strings with time-varying tension as well as with constant tension. Although current cosmological observations suggest that fluctuation seeded by cosmic strings cannot be the…
The unique, conical spacetime created by cosmic strings brings about distinctive gravitational lensing phenomena. The variety of these distinctive phenomena is increased when the strings have non-trivial mutual interactions. In particular,…
We show that adiabatic, super-Hubble, and almost scale invariant density fluctuations are produced by cosmic strings in a contracting universe. An essential point is that isocurvature perturbations produced by topological defects such as…
The dynamics of string junctions and their influence on the evolution of cosmic superstring networks are studied in full detail. We review kinematic constraints for colliding strings in a Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker background and…
We consider new cosmological solutions with a collapsing, an intermediate and an expanding phase. The boundary between the expanding (collapsing) phase and the intermediate phase is seen by comoving observers as a cosmological past (future)…
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…
In cosmological scenarios based on grand unification, string theory or braneworlds, many kinds of topological or non-topological defects, including monopoles and cosmic strings, are predicted to be formed in the early universe. Here we…
We fully classify the phenomenology of gravitational wave emission from scaling cosmic string networks with varying tension and compute the spectral indices of the resulting stochastic backgrounds. In string compactifications, periods of…
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…
We present an analytic model specifically designed to address the long standing issue of small scale structure on cosmic string networks. The model is derived from the microscopic string equations, together with a few motivated assumptions.…
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…
We examine variations in the equation of state of the cosmic string portion of the cosmological fluid which lead to perturbations of the background matter density. These fluctuations in the equation of state are due to variations in the…
We report on a large scale numerical study of networks of semilocal cosmic strings in flat space in the parameter regime in which they are perturbatively stable. We find a population of segments with an exponential length distribution and…
This is a short review on strings in curved spacetimes. We start by recalling the classical and quantum string behaviour in singular plane waves backgrounds. We then report on the string behaviour in cosmological spacetimes (FRW, de Sitter,…
Cosmic string networks are expected to form in early Universe phase transitions via the Kibble mechanism and are unavoidable in several Beyond the Standard Model theories. While most predictions of observational signals of string networks…
We show that quantum systems of extended objects naturally give rise to a large class of exotic phases - namely topological phases. These phases occur when the extended objects, called ``string-nets'', become highly fluctuating and…
D-branes, topological defects in string theory on which string endpoints can live, may give new insight into the understanding of the cosmological evolution of the Universe at early epochs. We analyze the dynamics of D-branes in curved…
It has long been known that strings wound around incontractible cycles can play a vital role in cosmology. In particular, in a spacetime with toroidal spatial hypersurfaces, the dynamics of the winding modes may help yield three large…
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…