Related papers: Gravitational lensing by cosmic strings: what we l…
It has been suggested that cosmic strings produced at a phase transition in the early universe can be the origin of the extremely high energy cosmic rays (EHCR) observed by AGASA above 10^20 eV. Superheavy cosmic strings with linear mass…
CSL1 is a peculiar object discovered in the OACDF. Photometric and spectroscopic investigation strongly suggest that it may be the first case of gravitational lensing by cosmic string. In this paper we derive and discuss a statistical…
Deflection of light by gravity was predicted by General Relativity and observationaly confirmed in 1919. In the following decades various aspects of the gravitational lens effect were explored theoretically, among them the possibility of…
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…
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…
Strong gravitational lensing at the galaxy scale is a valuable tool for various applications in astrophysics and cosmology. The primary uses of galaxy-scale lensing are to study elliptical galaxies' mass structure and evolution, constrain…
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…
We show that the existence of cosmic strings can be strongly constrained by the next generation of gravitational lensing surveys at radio frequencies. We focus on cosmic string loops, which simulations suggest would be far more numerous…
We calculate the deflection of a light ray caused by the gravitational field of a cosmic string loop in the weak field limit and reduce the problem to a single quadrature over a time slice of the loop's world sheet. We then apply this…
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…
We reconsider the general properties of gravitational lensing effects induced by cosmic string systems, taking into account their equation of state and motion equations. We explicitly show that the deflection patterns induced by a string is…
Cosmic superstrings are produced towards the end of the brane inflation. If the string tension is low enough, loops tend to be relatively long-lived. The resultant string network is expected to contain many loops which are smaller than…
Cosmic strings are generically predicted in many extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. We propose a new avenue for detecting cosmic strings through their effect on the filamentary structure in the cosmic web. Using…
We consider the signature and detectability of gravitational microlensing of distant quasars by cosmic strings. Because of the simple image configuration such events will have a characteristic light curve, in which a source would appear to…
We present investigations of lens phenomenological properties of cosmic strings for deep galaxy surveys. General results that have obtained for lineic energy distribution are presented first. We stress that generically the local convergence…
Correlated red noise recently reported from pulsar timing observations may be an indication of stochastic gravitational waves emitted by cosmic strings that formed during a primordial phase transition near the Grand Unification energy…
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…
Understanding of the signatures of cosmic string networks is limited by a large uncertainty in the sizes at which cosmic string loops form. We review cosmic string network evolution, and the gravitational signatures, with emphasis on this…
We search Hubble Space Telescope Treasury Program images collected as part of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey for pairs of galaxies consistent with the gravitational lensing signature of a cosmic string. Our technique includes…
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…