Related papers: Cosmological Experiments in Condensed Matter Syste…
We note that in general there exist two basic aspects in any branch of physics, including cosmology - one dealing with the attributes of basic constituents and forces of nature, the other dealing with how structures arise from them and how…
The formation of topological defects in a second order phase transition in the early universe is an out-of-equilibrium process. Condensed matter experiments seem to support Zurek's mechanism, in which the freezing of thermal fluctuations…
This is an introductory review of the physics of topological quantum matter with cold atoms. Topological quantum phases, originally discovered and investigated in condensed matter physics, have recently been explored in a range of different…
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…
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…
The sequence of phase transitions during the hot history of the universe is followed within a phenomenological framework. Particular emphasis is put on the QCD confinement transition, which is at reach under earth laboratory conditions. A…
In this lecture at a school for condensed matter physicists, I begin with basic concepts and tools for investigating phase transitions in quantum field theory. The very different roles of global and gauge symmetries in phase transitions…
Production of gravitational vacuum defects and their contribution to the energy density of our Universe are discussed. These topological microstructures (defects) could be produced in the result of creation of the Universe from "nothing"…
Topological phases of matter are ubiquitous in crystals, but less is known about their existence in amorphous systems, that lack long-range order. In this perspective, we review the recent progress made on theoretically defining amorphous…
The control of condensed matter systems out of equilibrium by laser pulses allows us to investigate the system trajectories through symmetry-breaking phase transitions. Thus the evolution of both collective modes and single particle…
The past few years have seen dramatic breakthroughs and spectacular and puzzling discoveries in astrophysics and cosmology. In many cases, the new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. Here we…
In standard cosmology, with the evolution of the universe, the matter density and thermodynamic pressure gradually decreases. Also in course of evolution, the matter in the universe obeys (or violates) some restrictions or energy…
In condensed matter physics and related areas, topological defects play important roles in phase transitions and critical phenomena. Homotopy theory facilitates the classification of such topological defects. After a pedagogic introduction…
The evolution of the Universe is the ultimate laboratory to study fundamental physics across energy scales that span about 25 orders of magnitude: from the grand unification scale through particle and nuclear physics scales down to the…
Despite their tremendous successes, modern-day cosmology and particle physics harbor a variety of unresolved mysteries. Two of the biggest are the origin of the baryon asymmetry of the Universe and the existence and nature of dark matter.…
Cosmology is living through fascinating times, where new observations from ground and space telescopes are questioning the established paradigm, the so-called Lambda Cold Dark Matter model. The particle nature of Dark Matter is severely…
In these lectures, I describe the formation of defect distributions in first-order phase transitions, then briefly discuss the relevance of defect interactions after a phase transition and the observational signatures of cosmic strings.…
The scenario of a cosmology with topological defects is surveyed starting from the field theoretic aspects and ending with a description of large-scale structure formation and magnetic field generation. (Lectures delivered at ICTP, Trieste,…
In these lectures we look for parallels between symmetry breaking in the early universe and condensed matter systems, and discuss experiments that display these.
The Cosmic Defect theory has been confronted with four observational constraints: primordial nuclear species abundances emerging from the big bang nucleosynthesis; large scale structure formation in the universe; cosmic microwave background…