Related papers: Topological String Defect Formation During the Chi…
In these lectures, I review cosmological phase transitions and the topological aspects of spontaneous symmetry breaking. I then discuss the formation of walls, strings and monopoles during phase transitions including lattice based studies…
We develop methods to probe the excitation spectrum of topological phases of matter in two spatial dimensions. Applying these to the Fibonacci string nets perturbed away from exact solvability, we analyze a topological phase transition…
Chiral edge states of 2+1 dimensional Abelian and non-Abelian topological phases can be represented by chiral conformal field theories with integer and non-integer values of central charge, respectively. In this work we describe certain…
In this paper we describe a new type of topological defect, called a homilia string, which is stabilized via interactions with the string network. Using analytical and numerical techniques, we investigate the stability and dynamics of…
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…
When many fundamental strings are stacked together, they puff up into D-branes. BIons and giant gravitons are the examples of such D-brane configurations that arise from coincident strings. We propose and demonstrate analogous transitions…
It is known that string theory compactifications leading to low energy effective theories with different chiral matter content ({\it e.g.} different numbers of standard model generations) are connected through phase transitions, described…
I discuss some aspects of conformal defects and conformal interfaces in two spacetime dimensions. Special emphasis is placed on their role as spectrum-generating symmetries of classical string theory.
We study the possible signals of a pion string associated with the QCD chiral phase transition in LHC Pb - Pb collision at energy $ \sqrt{s}=5.5$ TeV. In terms of the Kibble-Zurek mechanism we discuss the production and evolution of the…
We study the formation of topological textures in a nonequilibrium phase transition of an overdamped classical O(3) model in 2+1 dimensions. The phase transition is triggered through an external, time-dependent effective mass, parameterized…
We study dynamical instability and chiral symmetry breaking in three dimensional Weyl semimetals, which turns Weyl semimetals into "axion insulators". Charge density waves (CDW) is found to be the natural consequence of the chiral symmetry…
We uncover a rich microphysical structure for SO(10) cosmic strings. For the abelian string the electroweak symmetry is restored around it in a region depending on the electroweak scale. A rich structure of nonabelian strings is found. Some…
The topological structure of vacuum is the cornerstone of non-Abelian gauge theories describing strong and electroweak interactions within the standard model of particle physics. However, transitions between different topological sectors of…
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…
Hard spheres in Newtonian fluids serve as paradigms for Non-Newtonian materials phenomena exhibited by colloidal suspensions. A recent experimental study (Cheng et al. 2011 Science, 333, 1276) showed that upon application of shear to such a…
We consider an SU(2) gauge theory in six-dimensions. We show that there exists non-trivial structure of gauge vacua in compactified background M4xS2. In this circumstances, there can exist a cosmic string, whose solution is recently…
Cosmic strings can arise in hidden sector models with a spontaneously broken Abelian symmetry group. We have studied the couplings of the Standard Model fields to these so-called dark strings in the companion paper. Here we survey the…
We study the impact of non-Abelian T-duality transformations on a string based cosmological model. The implementation of the pre-big-bang scenario is investigated. We found a region of the dual phase where such a picture is possible.
We perform the numerical field evolution for the collision of two Abelian type I cosmic strings. We present evidence that, for collisions at small but characteristic relative velocities and angles, these cosmic strings do not exchange ends…
We study phase transitions induced by topological defects in Abelian gauge theories of open p-branes in (d+1) space-time dimensions. Starting from a massive antisymmetric tensor theory for open p-branes we show how the condensation of…