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Flat directions are a generic feature of the scalar potential in supersymmetric gauge field theories. They can arise, for example, from D-terms associated with an extra abelian gauge symmetry. Even when supersymmetry is broken softly, there…
Aspects of superstring cosmology are reviewed with an emphasis on the cosmological implications of duality symmetries in the theory. The string effective actions are summarized and toroidal compactification to four dimensions reviewed.…
New examples of N=2 supersymmetric conformal field theories are found as fixed points of SU(2) N=2 supersymmetric QCD. Relations among the scaling dimensions of their relevant chiral operators, global symmetries, and Higgs branches are…
In this review, a number of approaches to superstring cosmology which make use of key features which distinguish string theory from point particle theories are discussed, with particular emphasis on emergent scenarios. One motivation for…
Global U(1) strings with cylindrical symmetry are studied in anti-de Sitter spacetime. According as the magnitude of negative cosmological constant, they form regular global cosmic strings, extremal black cosmic strings and charged black…
The study of gravitational waves in the presence of a cosmological constant has led to interesting forms of the de Sitter and anti-de Sitter line elements based on families of null hypersurfaces. The forms are interesting because they focus…
String theory has strong implications for cosmology: it tells us that we cannot have a cosmological constant, that single-field slow-roll inflation is ruled out, and that black holes decay. We elucidate the origin of these statements within…
Single-field models of accelerated expansion with nearly flat potentials, despite being able to provide observationally viable explanations for the early-time cosmic inflation and the late-time cosmic acceleration, are in strong tension…
Recent work on cosmological amplitudes has established reality conditions (derived from unitarity) for general particle-creation processes in flat FLRW cosmologies, in the Bunch-Davies wavefunction. In light of these results, we propose a…
The conical singularity in flat spacetime is mostly known as a model of the cosmic string or the wedge disclination in solids. Its another, equally important, function is to be a representative of quasiregular singularities. From all these…
We present a model of non-relativistic gravitational theory which is power-counting renormalizable in 3+1 dimensional spacetime. When applied to cosmology, the relativity-violation terms lead to a dark radiation component, which can give…
We determine the most general form of the antisymmetric $H$-field tensor derived from a purely time-dependent potential that is admitted by all possible spatially homogeneous cosmological models in 3+1-dimensional low-energy bosonic string…
We briefly review a class of four dimensional $\mathcal N=3$ field theories constructed by taking a quotient of $\mathcal N=4$ SYM with gauge group $U(N)$. The quotient involves a discrete symmetry that only exists for specific, order one,…
We consider cosmological solutions of string and M-theory compactified to four dimensions by giving a general prescription to construct four-dimensional modular cosmologies with two commuting Killing vectors from vacuum solutions. By…
String theory is a quantum theory that reproduces the results of General Relativity at long distances but is completely different at short distances. Mathematically, string theory is based on a very new -- and little understood -- framework…
In this thesis, we explore three phenomenological alternatives to the current paradigm of the standard inflationary big bang scenario. The three alternative themes are spin torsion (or Einstein-Cartan-Kibble-Sciama) theories, extra…
It was recently shown that the homogeneous and isotropic cosmology of a massless scalar field coupled to general relativity exhibits a new hidden conformal invariance under Mobius transformation of the proper time, additionally to the…
Progress on string theory in curved spacetimes since 1992 are reviewed. After a short introduction on strings in Minkowski and curved spacetimes, we focus on strings in cosmological spacetimes. The classical behaviour of strings in FRW and…
Cosmic strings are predicted by many field-theory models, and may have been formed at a symmetry-breaking transition early in the history of the universe, such as that associated with grand unification. They could have important…
We compute the cosmological reduction of general string theories, including bosonic, heterotic and type II string theory to order $\alpha'^{3}$, i.e., with up to eight derivatives. To this end we refine recently introduced methods that…