Related papers: A First Glimpse of String Theory in the Sky?
Ultra-light axions ($m_a\lesssim 10^{-18}$eV), motivated by string theory, can be a powerful probe of the energy scale of inflation. In contrast to heavier axions the isocurvature modes in the ultra-light axions can coexist with observable…
We explore the use of random forest and gradient boosting, two powerful tree-based machine learning algorithms, for the detection of cosmic strings in maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), through their unique Gott-Kaiser-Stebbins…
We examine the two-point correlation function of local maxima in temperature fluctuations at the last scattering surface when this stochastic field is modified by the additional fluctuations produced by straight cosmic strings via the…
We study the effect of weak lensing by cosmic (super-)strings on the anisotropies of cosmic microwave background (CMB). In developing a method to calculate the lensing convergence field due to strings, and thereby temperature and…
The aim of this paper is to highlight the challenges and potential gains surrounding a coherent description of physics from the high-energy scales of inflation down to the lower energy scales probed in particle-physics experiments. As an…
A network of cosmic strings (CS), if present, would continue emitting gravitational waves (GW) as it evolves throughout the history of the Universe. This results in a characteristic broad spectrum making it a perfect source to infer the…
Using the dS/QFT correspondence in the context of inflation allows for the study of interesting, otherwise inaccessible physics. In particular, by studying inflation via its dual field theory at the boundary of the de Sitter space, it may…
We study the dynamics and observational predictions of warm inflation within a supersymmetric distributed mass model. This dissipative mechanism is well described by the interactions between the inflaton and a tower of chiral multiplets…
We propose a multi-scale edge-detection algorithm to search for the Gott-Kaiser-Stebbins imprints of a cosmic string (CS) network on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. Curvelet decomposition and extended Canny algorithm are…
Cosmological perturbations, originating in the quantum fluctuations of the fields that drive inflation, are observed to be nearly scale invariant at the largest scales. At smaller scales, however, perturbations are not severely constrained…
In this thesis, consisting of two main parts, we study observational signatures of cosmic (super)strings in the context of D-brane inflation and properties of scalar perturbations on generic homogeneous inflating backgrounds. In the first…
Considerable and ongoing effort is made to identify promising scalar field candidates in string theory to drive a cosmological period of inflation. At stake is the possibility that fundamental string parameters could be encoded in…
Cosmic strings of the GUT scale, generically formed during the SSB of supersymmetric hybrid inflation, are compatible with the most recent CMB data. The strong constraints on the allowed cosmic strings contribution to the measured…
We consider new cosmological solutions with a collapsing, an intermediate and an expanding phase. The boundary between the expanding (collapsing) phase and the intermediate phase is seen by comoving observers as a cosmological past (future)…
In a recent publication, we used the data from WMAP and SDSS to constrain the primordial perturbations and to predict the B-mode polarization sourced by cosmic string networks. We have been alerted by A. Slosar to the existence of errors in…
This is a short review on strings in curved spacetimes. We start by recalling the classical and quantum string behaviour in singular plane waves backgrounds. We then report on the string behaviour in cosmological spacetimes (FRW, de Sitter,…
Very recent CMB data of WMAP offers an opportunity to test inflation models, in particular, the running of spectral index is quite new and can be used to rule out some models. We show that an noncommutative spacetime inflation model gives a…
In recent years cross correlation of lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) with other large scale structure (LSS) tracers has been used as a method to detect CMB lensing. Current experiments are also becoming sensitive enough to…
In this paper, inflationary cosmology is reviewed, paying particular attention to its observational signatures associated with large-scale density perturbations generated from quantum fluctuations. In the most general scalar-tensor theories…
We investigate the possibility that a heavy scalar field, whose mass exceeds the Hubble scale during inflation, could leave non-negligible signatures in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropy power spectrum through the…