Related papers: Observational Constraints on Cosmic String Product…
"Brane supersymmetry breaking" occurs in String Theory when the only available combinations of D-branes and orientifolds are not mutually BPS and yet do not introduce tree-level tachyon instabilities. It is characterized by the emergence of…
A standard expectation of primordial cosmological inflation is that it dilutes all relics created before its onset to unobservable levels. We present a counterexample to this expectation by demonstrating that a network of cosmic strings…
Braneworld inflation is a phenomenology related to string theory that describes high-energy modifications to general relativistic inflation. The observable universe is a braneworld embedded in 5-dimensional anti de Sitter spacetime. Whe the…
We review applications of string theory to cosmology, from primordial times to the present-day accelerated expansion. Starting with a brief overview of cosmology and string compactifications, we discuss in detail moduli stabilisation,…
We present a superstring-inspired version of D-term inflation which does not lead to cosmic string formation and appears to satisfy the current CMB constraints. It differs from minimal D-term inflation by a second pair of charged…
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…
We propose a model of inflation in the framework of brane cosmology driven by background supergravity. Starting from bulk supergravity we construct the inflaton potential on the brane and employ it to investigate for the consequences to…
In light of the recent Planck 2015 results for the measurement of the CMB anisotropy, we study simple inflationary models in the context of the Gauss-Bonnet brane-world cosmology. The brane-world cosmological effect modifies the power…
We obtain observational constraints on Randall--Sundrum type II braneworld inflation using a compilation of data including WMAP, the 2dF and latest SDSS galaxy redshift surveys. We place constraints on three classes of inflation models…
Motivated by the string landscape we examine scenarios for which inflation is a two-step process, with a comparatively short inflationary epoch near the string scale and a longer period at a much lower energy (like the TeV scale). We…
The inflaton potential in four-dimensional theory is rather arbitrary, and fine-tuning is required generically. By contrast, inflation in the brane world scenario has the interesting feature that the inflaton potential is motivated from…
For suitable cosmological backgrounds, thermal fluctuations of a gas of strings can generate a scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological fluctuations without requiring a phase of inflationary expansion. We highlight the key points of this…
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…
Bursts of particle production during inflation provide a well-motivated mechanism for creating bump like features in the primordial power spectrum. Current data constrains these features to be less than about 5% the size of the featureless…
Cosmic strings are generically predicted in many extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. We propose a new avenue for detecting cosmic strings through their effect on the filamentary structure in the cosmic web. Using…
In scalar-tensor theories the scalar fields generically couple nontrivially to gravity. We study the observable properties of inflationary models with non-minimally coupled inflaton and Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term. Within the…
After 25 years of its existence, inflationary theory gradually becomes the standard cosmological paradigm. However, we still do not know which of the many versions of inflationary cosmology will be favored by the future observational data.…
We forecast the ability of cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization datasets to constrain theories of eternal inflation using cosmic bubble collisions. Using the Fisher matrix formalism, we determine both the overall…
We present a minimal model for the Universe evolution fully extracted from effective String Theory. This model is by its construction close to the standard cosmological evolution, and it is driven selfconsistently by the evolution of the…
High-energy modifications to general relativity introduce changes to the perturbations generated during inflation, and the latest high-precision cosmological data can be used to place constraints on such modified inflation models. Recently…