Related papers: Cosmic String Lensing and Closed Time-like Curves
We study spatial variations of the fine-structure constant in the presence of static straight cosmic strings in the weak-field approximation in Einstein gravity. We work in the context of a generic Bekenstein-type model and consider a gauge…
Gravitational lensing by a spiral galaxy occurs when the line-of-sight to a background quasar passes within a few kpc from the center of the galactic disk. Since galactic disks are rich in neutral hydrogen, the quasar spectrum will likely…
It is known for a long time that the space time around a spinning cylindrical symmetric compact object such as the cosmic string, show un-physical behavior, i.e., they would possess closed time like curves (CTC). This controversy with…
We study the relative contribution of cusps and pseudocusps, on cosmic (super)strings, to the emitted bursts of gravitational waves. The gravitational wave emission in the vicinity of highly relativistic points on the string follows, for a…
The images of many distant galaxies are displaced, distorted and often multiplied by the presence of foreground massive galaxies near the line of sight; the foreground galaxies act as gravitational lenses. Commonly, the lens equation, which…
Correlated red noise recently reported from pulsar timing observations may be an indication of stochastic gravitational waves emitted by cosmic strings that formed during a primordial phase transition near the Grand Unification energy…
Recent observations suggest appreciable star formation activity in early-type galaxies down to redshift $z\sim 0.5$. If so, there is likely to be dust in these galaxies. We consider the possibility that obscuration by dust can reconcile the…
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…
The Cosmological Constant Problem is re-examined from an effective field theory perspective. While the connection between gravity and particle physics has not been experimentally probed in the quantum regime, it is severely constrained by…
We study gravitational lensing of gravitational waves taking into account the spin of a graviton coupled with a dragged spacetime made by a rotating object. We decompose the phase of gravitational waves into helicity-dependent and…
We consider bound geodesic orbits of test masses in the exterior gravitational field of a rotating astronomical source whose proper angular momentum varies linearly with time. The linear perturbation approach of Lense and Thirring is herein…
We consider a population of small, high-velocity cosmic string loops. We assume the typical length of these loops is determined by the gravitational radiation scale and use the results of \cite{Polchinski:2007rg} which pointed out their…
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,…
A qualitative discussion of possible features of a composite graviton arising out of open string field theory is provided along with expected modifications to the graviton propagator due to such a composite graviton model. Possible…
Cosmic strings are predicted in many models beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. In models which admit strings, a network of strings will inevitably be formed in a phase transition in the early universe and will persist to the…
Monopole-antimonopole pairs connected by strings can be formed as topological defects in a sequence of cosmological phase transitions. Such hybrid defects typically decay early in the history of the universe but can still generate an…
We study the effect of a stochastic background of gravitational waves on the gravitational lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. It has been shown that matter density inhomogeneities produce a smoothing of the acoustic…
A massless scalar field is quantized in the background of a spinning string with cosmic dislocation. By increasing the spin density toward the dislocation parameter, a region containing closed timelike curves (CTCs) eventually forms around…
The linear stability of closed timelike geodesics (CTGs) is analyzed in two spacetimes with cylindrical sources, an infinite rotating dust cylinder, and a cylindrical cloud of static cosmic strings with a central spinning string. We also…
Cosmic strings are predicted in various extensions of the Standard Model, including grand unified theories. Depending on the symmetry-breaking pattern, they can be either topologically stable or metastable. Intriguingly, metastable strings…