Related papers: The no-defect conjecture in cosmic crystallography
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…
When the topology of the universe is non trivial, it has been shown that there are constraints on the network of domain walls, cosmic strings and monopoles. I generalize these results to textures and study the cosmological implications of…
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:…
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 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…
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…
A (very) brief review of topological defects and their possible cosmic roles. I emphasize in particular that superheavy defects needed for structure formation can peacefully coexist with inflation, despite the claims to the contrary which…
The subject of topological defects has become a very attractive field of study given its apparent relevance to as diverse systems as the early universe and condensed matter. As usually envisaged the topology of the manifold M of the minima…
General relativity does not allow one to specify the topology of space, leaving the possibility that space is multi-- rather than simply--connected. We review the main mathematical properties of multi--connected spaces, and the different…
As phenomena that necessarily emerge from the collective behavior of interacting particles, phase transitions continue to be difficult to predict using statistical thermodynamics. A recent proposal called the topological hypothesis suggests…
We assume that the Universe has a non trivial topology whose compact spatial sections have a volume significantly smaller than the horizon volume. By a topological lens effect, such a "folded" space configuration generates multiple images…
Topological defects are ubiquitous in physics. Whenever a symmetry breaking phase transition occurs, topological defects may form. The best known examples are vortex lines in type II super conductors or in liquid Helium, and declination…
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…
Multi-connected universe models with space identification scales smaller than the size of the observable universe produce topological images of cosmic sources. We generalise to locally hyperbolic spaces the crystallographic method, aimed to…
This review aims to cover the central aspects of current research in cosmic topology from a topological and observational perspective. Beginning with an overview of the basic concepts of cosmology, it is observed that though a determinant…
General relativity does not allow one to specify the topology of space, leaving the possibility that space is multiply rather than simply connected. We review the main mathematical properties of multiply connected spaces, and the different…
The Topological Hypothesis states that phase transitions should be related to changes in the topology of configuration space. The necessity of such changes has already been demonstrated. We characterize exactly the topology of the…
We investigate to what extent the cosmic crystallographic methods aimed to detect the topology of the universe using catalogues of cosmic objects would be damaged by various observational uncertainties. We find that the topological…
As a point of departure it is suggested that Quantum Cosmology is a topological concept independent from metrical constraints. Methods of continuous topological evolution and topological thermodynamics are used to construct a cosmological…