Related papers: Low-energy graceful exit in anisotropic string cos…
We consider the effects on cosmology of higher-derivative modifications of (effective) gravity that make it asymptotically free without introducing ghosts. The weakening of gravity at short distances allows pressure to prevent the…
We clarify the status of transplanckian effects on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy. We do so using the boundary effective action formalism of hep-th/0401164 which accounts quantitatively for the cosmological vacuum…
We present a brief review of recent advances in string cosmology. Starting with the Dilaton-Moduli Cosmology (known also as the Pre Big Bang), we go on to include the effects of axion fields and address the thorny issue of the Graceful Exit…
In this paper, we present results for large-angle CMB anisotropies generated from high resolution simulations of cosmic string networks in a range of flat FRW universes with a cosmological constant. Using an ensemble of all-sky maps, we…
Additional evidence is presented for a recently proposed effective string model, conjectured to hold throughout the parameter space of the basic 5 dimensional, triply charged black holes, which includes the effects of brane excitations, as…
We introduce a very early universe model based on the thermodynamics of a gas of closed strings in a background which is non-perturbative in $\alpha'$. Upon considering the fully $\alpha'$-corrected equations extended to include certain…
The standard cosmological model supposes that the dominant matter component changes in the course of the evolution of the universe. We study the homogeneous and isotropic universe with non-zero cosmological constant in the epoch when the…
We discuss a simple cosmological model derived from M-theory. Three assumptions lead naturally to a pre-big bang scenario: (a) 11-dimensional supergravity describes the low-energy world; (b) non-gravitational fields live on a…
If string theory controls physics at the string scale, the dynamics of the early universe before the GUT era will be governed by the low-energy string equations of motion. Studying these equations for FRW spacetimes, we find that depending…
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…
Systems of interacting networks of strings such as cosmic strings or quantum vortices can be approximated in a certain regime as an anisotropic fluid with an equation of state depending on a conserved flux. The equations for ideal…
A string cosmology scenario ("pre-big-bang") postulates that the evolution of the Universe starts from a state of very small curvature and coupling, undergoes a long phase of dilaton-driven kinetic inflation and at some later time joins…
Several examples are known where quantum gravity effects resolve the classical big bang singularity by a bounce. The most detailed analysis has probably occurred for loop quantum cosmology of isotropic models sourced by a free, massless…
We briefly review three aspects of string cosmology: (1) the ``stochastic'' approach to the pre-big bang scenario, (2) the presence of chaos in the generic cosmological solutions of the tree-level low-energy effective actions coming out of…
We construct a string-inspired nonsingular cosmological scenario in which an inflaton field is driven up the potential before the graceful exit by employing a low-energy string effective action with an orbifold compactification. This sets…
We review several cosmological backgrounds of gravitational waves accessible to direct-detection experiments, with a special emphasis on those backgrounds due to first-order phase transitions and networks of cosmic (super-)strings. For…
We review physical motivations, phenomenological consequences, and open problems of the so-called pre-big bang scenario in superstring cosmology.
Sign-switching dark energy provides a novel mechanism for modifying the late-time expansion history of the Universe without invoking additional fields or finely tuned initial conditions. In this work, we investigate a class of…
We consider conditions under which a universe contracting towards a big crunch can make a transition to an expanding big bang universe. A promising example is 11-dimensional M-theory in which the eleventh dimension collapses, bounces, and…
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…