Related papers: Interactions between $U(1)$ Cosmic Strings: An Ana…
Aspects of string cosmology for critical and non-critical strings are discussed emphasizing the necessity to account for the dilaton dynamics for a proper incorporation of ``large - small" duality. This drastically modifies the intuition…
An implicit, fully characteristic, numerical scheme for solving the field equations of a cosmic string coupled to gravity is described. The inclusion of null infinity as part of the numerical grid allows us to apply suitable boundary…
Cosmic strings in non-abelian gauge theories naturally gain a spectrum of massless, or light, excitations arising from their embedding in color and flavor space. This opens up the possibility that colliding strings miss each other in the…
Cosmic strings are topological defects possibly formed in the early Universe, which may be observable due to their gravitational effects on the cosmic microwave background radiation or gravitational wave experiments. To this effect it is…
Making use of the wealth of new observational data coming from the sky it is possible to constrain particle physics theories beyond the Standard Model. One way to do this is illustrated in this article: a subset of theories admits cosmic…
The evolution of cosmic string networks is an interesting dynamical problem. The equations governing these networks are classical and fully specified, but the length scale at which cosmic string loops form has been uncertain to tens of…
Calculations of the production rate of particles with $x>1$ in nuclear collisions due to the interaction of colour strings are presented. Momentum and colour sum rules are used to determine the fragmentation functions of fused strings.…
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 investigate a static, cylindrically symmetric cosmic string on the brane without a perturbative approximation. We find there could be a (large) enhancement of the (effective) string tension when the energy density at the center of the…
Cosmic strings are one-dimensional topological defects which could have been formed in the early stages of our Universe. They triggered a lot of interest, mainly for their cosmological implications: they could offer an alternative to…
The interplay between string theory and cosmology is very promising. Since string theory will yield a quantum theory of space-time and unify all forces of nature, it has the potential of addressing many of the conceptual problems of the…
It is shown that the fusion of strings is a source of particle production in nucleus--nucleus collisions outside the kinematical limits of nucleon--nucleon collisions. This fact, together with another effect of string fusion, the reduction…
Theories of the cosmological constant fall into two classes, those in which the vacuum energy is fixed by the fundamental theory and those in which it is adjustable in some way. For each class we discuss key challenges. The string theory…
Whilst standard field theoretic Cosmic Strings cannot end, Cosmic Superstrings can form three string junctions, at which each string ends. This opens up a new class of possible boundary conditions for such strings and we show that, at least…
The dynamics of string junctions and their influence on the evolution of cosmic superstring networks are studied in full detail. We review kinematic constraints for colliding strings in a Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker background and…
Motivated by astrophysical observations of excess electronic production in the galaxy, new theoretical models of the dark matter sector have been proposed in which the Standard model couples to the dark matter sector through an attractive…
Cosmic strings, a hot subject in the 1980's and early 1990's, lost its appeal when it was found that it leads to inconsistencies in the power spectrum of the measured cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies. However,…
Cosmic strings are linear concentrations of energy that may be formed at phase transitions in the very early universe. At one time they were thought to provide a possible origin for the density inhomogeneities from which galaxies eventually…
The dynamics of cosmic strings is considered in anisotropic backgrounds. In particular, the behaviour of infinitely long straight cosmic strings and of cosmic string loops is determined. Small perturbations of a straight cosmic string are…
We investigate cosmic strings arising from a hierarchical gauge symmetry breaking sequence, $\mathrm{SU}(2) \times \mathrm{U}(1) \rightarrow \mathrm{U}(1) \times \mathrm{U}(1) \rightarrow \mathrm{U}(1)' \rightarrow \text{Nothing}$. This…