Related papers: The Hubble Web: The Dark Matter Problem and Cosmic…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of inflationary scenarios based on string theory. Inflation is a brief period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe which gives natural explanations for problems of the Standard Big Bang…
Understanding of the signatures of cosmic string networks is limited by a large uncertainty in the sizes at which cosmic string loops form. We review cosmic string network evolution, and the gravitational signatures, with emphasis on this…
If the dark matter sector in the universe is composed by metastable particles, galaxies and galaxy clusters are expected to undergo significant secular evolution from high to low redshift. We show that the decay of dark matter, with a…
The collisions of cosmic strings loops and the dynamics of junctions formations in expanding backgrounds are studied. The key parameter controlling the dynamics of junctions formation, the cosmic strings zipping and unzipping is the…
We present results of a cosmological hydrodynamical study of gravitational accretion in cosmic string wakes and filaments. Cosmic string wakes are formed by fast moving (v ~ c) strings. A conical deficit angle in the string spacetime…
Over the past three years we have determined the basic features of our Universe. It is spatially flat; accelerating; comprised of 1/3 a new form of matter, 2/3 a new form of energy, with some ordinary matter and a dash of massive neutrinos;…
The combination of non-minimal couplings to gravity with the post-inflationary kinetic-dominated era typically appearing in quintessential inflation scenarios may lead to the spontaneous symmetry breaking of internal symmetries and its…
We investigate a theory of dark matter called wave dark matter, also known as scalar field dark matter (SFDM) and boson star dark matter or Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) dark matter, in spherical symmetry and its relation to the…
Cosmic strings can arise in hidden sector models with a spontaneously broken Abelian symmetry group. We have studied the couplings of the Standard Model fields to these so-called dark strings in the companion paper. Here we survey the…
Brane inflation is a specific realization of the inflationary universe scenario in the early universe within the brane world framework in string theory. The naturalness and robustness of this realistic scenario is explained. Its predictions…
We show that all three conditions for the cosmological relevance of heterotic cosmic strings, the right tension, stability and a production mechanism at the end of inflation, can be met in the strongly coupled M-theory regime. Whereas…
Starting from the 1970s, some relations connecting dark matter and baryons were discovered, such as the Tully-Fisher relation. However, many of the relations found in galaxies are quite different from that found in galaxy clusters. Here, we…
We motivate the study of chiral cosmic strings through a scenario of structure formation which mixes D-term inflation and strings. We then discuss some properties of chiral cosmic strings, and results regarding their evolution and possible…
I review a cosmological model based on string-inspired gravity with anomalies and torsion, which leads to a cosmology of running-vacuum-model (RVM) type. It is argued that such a model can lead to observable, in principle, deviations from…
Dark energy, the main constituent in our expanding universe, responsible for its acceleration, is currently being observed with unprecedented precision through various experiments. While several cosmological models can fit this latest data,…
Over the past three years we have determined the basic features of the Universe -- spatially flat; accelerating; comprised of 1/3 a new form of matter, 2/3 a new form of energy, with some ordinary matter and a dash of massive neutrinos; and…
The cosmic string is a useful probe of the early Universe and may give us a clue to physics at high energy scales where any artificial particle accelerators cannot reach. Although one of the most promising tools is the cosmic microwave…
We study the formation of cosmic strings by confining a stochastic magnetic field into flux tubes in a numerical simulation. We use overdamped evolution in a potential that is minimized when the flux through each face in the simulation…
The predictions of the inflationary LCDM paradigm match today's high-precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy extremely well. The same data put tight limits on other sources of anisotropy. Cosmic strings are a…
We investigate the contribution made by small loops from a cosmic string network as seeds for large-scale structure formation. We show that cosmic string loops are highly correlated with the long-string network on large scales and therefore…