Related papers: Observing Long Cosmic Strings Through Gravitationa…
We find solutions of Einstein's field equation for topologically stable strings associated with the breaking of a U(1) symmetry. Strings form in many GUTs and are expected whenever the homotopy group $\Pi_1(M_0)$ is non-trivial. The…
Circular massless cosmic strings which move with the speed of light in the de Sitter universe are described. Construction of the background geometry is based on parabolic isometries of the de Sitter spacetime. Microscopic circular cosmic…
Some aspects of gravitational lensing by large scale structure (LSS) are investigated. We show that lensing causes the damping tail of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum to fall less rapidly with decreasing angular scale…
Flat directions are a generic feature of the scalar potential in supersymmetric gauge field theories. They can arise, for example, from D-terms associated with an extra abelian gauge symmetry. Even when supersymmetry is broken softly, there…
A new candidate source of gravitational radiation is described: the nearly-perfect harmonic series from individual loops of cosmic string. It is argued that theories with light cosmic strings give rise to a population of numerous long-lived…
If an extended source, such as a galaxy, is gravitationally lensed by a massive object in the foreground, the lensing distorts the observed image. It is straightforward to simulate what the observed image would be for a particular lens and…
If it is hypothesised that there is no dark matter then some alternative gravitational theory must take the place of general relativity (GR) on the largest scales. Dynamical measurements can be used to investigate the nature of such a…
We extend our earlier model of the small scale structure of cosmic string networks through an improved treatment of the separation of long and short scales. We find that the production of small loops (at the gravitational radiation scale)…
Gravitational lensing is a powerful tool for constraining substructure in the mass distribution of galaxies, be it from the presence of dark matter sub-halos or due to physical mechanisms affecting the baryons throughout galaxy evolution.…
A network of cosmic strings would lead to gravitational waves which may be detected by pulsar timing or future interferometers. The details of the gravitational wave signal depend on the distribution of cosmic string loops, which are…
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…
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…
Massive structures, such as galaxies, act as strong gravitational lenses on background sources. When the background source is a quasar, several lensed images are seen, as magnified or de-magnified versions of the same object. The detailed…
When gravitational waves propagate near massive objects, their paths curve resulting in gravitational lensing, which is expected to be a promising new instrument in astrophysics. If the time delay between different paths is comparable with…
If cosmic strings are formed in the early universe, their associated loops emit gravitational waves during the whole cosmic history and contribute to the stochastic gravitational wave background at all frequencies. We provide a new estimate…
We describe the results of high-resolution numerical simulations of string-induced structure formation in open universes and those with a non-zero cosmological constant. For models with $\Gamma = \Omega h = 0.1 - 0.2$ and a cold dark matter…
In this work are reviewed several aspects of gravitational lensing produced by astrophysical bodies that strongly curve the spacetime in their vicinity. When an object with a photon sphere (e.g. a black hole) is interposed between a source…
With the increase in the number of observed gravitational wave (GW) signals, detecting strongly lensed GWs by galaxies has become a real possibility. Lens galaxies also contain microlenses (e.g., stars and black holes), introducing further…
Gravitational lensing is most often used as a tool to investigate the distribution of (dark) matter in the universe, but, if the mass distribution is known a priori, it becomes, at least in principle, a powerful probe of gravity itself.…
We present a newly developed code that allows simulations of optical observations of galaxy fields with a variety of instruments. The code incorporates gravitational lensing effects and is targetted at simulating lensing by galaxy clusters.…