Related papers: Moduli and Monopoles
Oscillons are extremely long lived, oscillatory, spatially localized field configurations that arise from generic initial conditions in a large number of non-linear field theories. With an eye towards their cosmological implications, we…
We consider moduli fields interacting with thermalized relativistic matter. We determine the temperature dependence of their damping rate and find it is dominated by thermal effects in the high temperature regime, i.e. for temperatures…
We critically review the role of cosmological moduli in determining the post-inflationary history of the universe. Moduli are ubiquitous in string and M-theory constructions of beyond the Standard Model physics, where they parametrize the…
We consider a (1+1) dimensional scalar field theory that supports oscillons, which are localized, oscillatory, stable solutions to nonlinear equations of motion. We study this theory in an expanding background and show that oscillons now…
We study four dimensional non-abelian gauge theories with classical moduli. Introducing a chemical potential for a flavor charge causes moduli to become unstable and start condensing. We show that the moduli condensation in the presence of…
We provide a comprehensive analysis of the acceleration of magnetic monopoles in intergalactic magnetic fields. We demonstrate that monopoles with intermediate to low masses can be accelerated to relativistic velocities. This can…
Magnetic fields appear to be present in essentially all astrophysical environments, including galaxies, clusters of galaxies and voids. There are both observational and theoretical motives for considering the possibility of their origin…
The electromagnetic decay and final annihilation of magnetic monopole-antimonopole pairs formed in the early universe has been proposed as a possible mechanism to produce the highest energy cosmic rays. We show that for a monopole abundance…
Periodically-modulated potentials in the form of light fields have previously been applied to induce reversible phase transitions in dilute colloidal systems with long-range interactions. Here we investigate whether similar transitions can…
One proposed solution of the moduli problem of string cosmology requires that the moduli are quite heavy, their decays reheating the universe to temperatures above the scale of nucleosynthesis. In many of these scenarios, the moduli are…
We investigate the possibility that the Universe may inflate due to moduli fields, corresponding to flat directions of supersymmetry, lifted by supergravity corrections. Using a hybrid-type potential we obtain a two-stage inflationary…
I study two-stage hybrid inflation driven by moduli fields, corresponding to flat directions of supersymmetry, lifted by supergravity corrections. The first stage corresponds to a period of either fast-roll or `locked' inflation, induced by…
We study quantum effects on moduli dynamics arising from the production of particles which are light at special points in moduli space. The resulting forces trap the moduli at these points, which often exhibit enhanced symmetry. Moduli…
We study the moduli space of M-theories compactified on G_2 manifolds which are asymptotic to a cone over quotients of S^3 x S^3. We show that the moduli space is composed of several components, each of which interpolates smoothly among…
The mechanism for triggering the universe inflation could be that at very early periods the time variable was discrete instead of smooth. Alternatively, and perhaps equivalently, it could be the consequence that the metrics of the early…
We argue that primordial black holes in the early universe can provide an efficient resolution of the Brustein-Steinhardt moduli overshoot problem in string cosmology. When the universe is created near the Planck scale, all the available…
Although observations point to the neutrality and lack of currents on large scales in the universe, many mechanisms are known that can generate charges or currents during the early universe. We examine the question of survivability of relic…
In this paper we show that the Universe is already strongly magnetized at very early epochs during cosmic evolution. Our calculations are based on the efficient amplification of weak magnetic seed fields, which are unavoidably present in…
Complex scalar fields charged under approximate $U(1)$ symmetries appear in well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model. One example is the field that contains the QCD axion field associated with the Peccei-Quinn symmetry; others…
We argue that moduli stabilization generically restricts the evolution following transitions between weakly coupled de Sitter vacua and can induce a strong selection bias towards inflationary cosmologies. The energy density of domain walls…