Related papers: Lectures on string theory and cosmology
I discuss cosmological models either derived from, or inspired by, string theory or M-theory. In particular I discuss solutions in the low-energy effective theory and the role of the dilaton, moduli and antisymmetric form fields in the…
At its very beginning, the universe is believed to have grown exponentially in size via the mechanism of inflation. The almost scale-invariant density perturbation spectrum predicted by inflation is strongly supported by cosmological…
In this set of lectures I review recent developments in string theory emphasizing their non-perturbative aspects and their recently discovered duality symmetries. The goal of the lectures is to make the recent exciting developments in…
We discuss some aspects of string cosmology with an emphasis on the role played by the dilaton. A cosmological scenario based on the assumption that all spatial dimensions are periodic so that winding modes play an important role is…
We give an introduction to the physics and mathematics involved in the recently observed relation between topological string theory and knot contact homology and then discuss this relation. The note is based on two lectures given at the…
Modern cosmology has created a tight link between particle physics / field theory and a wealth of new observational data on the structure of the Universe. These lecture notes focus on some of the most important aspects concerning the…
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…
This article briefly summarizes the motivations for -- and recent progress in -- searching for cosmological configurations within string theory, with a focus on how much we might reasonably hope to learn about fundamental physics from…
The intersection of string theory with cosmology is unavoidable in the early universe, and its exploration may shine light on both fields. In this thesis, three papers at this intersection are presented and reviewed, with the aim of…
This is a short summary of my lectures given at the Fourth Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics. These lectures gave a brief introduction to black holes in string theory, in which I primarily focussed on describing some of…
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…
We propose a new method for identifying new physics imprints on present observational data in cosmology whereby signatures of string theory are clearly distinguished from imprints of possible features on the inflaton potential. Our method…
These are the lecture notes for a short course in topological string theory that I gave at Uppsala University in the fall of 2004. The notes are aimed at PhD students who have studied quantum field theory and general relativity, and who…
The aim of these lectures is to give a brief introduction to brane cosmology. After introducing some basic geometrical notions, we discuss the cosmology of a brane universe with matter localized on the brane. Then we introduce an intrinsic…
String theory counterparts to Einstein's gravity, cosmology and inflation are described. A very tight upper bound on the Cosmic Gravitational Radiation Background (CGRB) of standard inflation is shown to be evaded in string cosmology, while…
With the advent of the LHC and the continuing influx of cosmological data, phenomenological aspects of string theory have received renewed attention in recent years and many problems have been properly incorporated in this framework. In…
In spite of its great phenomenological success, current models of scalar field-driven inflation suffer from important unresolved conceptual issues. New fundamental physics will be required to address these questions. String theory is a…
String gas cosmology is a string theory-based approach to early universe cosmology which is based on making use of robust features of string theory such as the existence of new states and new symmetries. A first goal of string gas cosmology…
This is a short review on strings in curved spacetimes. We start by recalling the classical and quantum string behaviour in singular plane waves backgrounds. We then report on the string behaviour in cosmological spacetimes (FRW, de Sitter,…
In the light of $\phi$-mapping topological current theory, the structure of cosmic strings are obtained from the Abelian Higgs model, which is an effective description to the brane world cosmic string system. In this topological description…