Related papers: Cosmic String Nucleation near the Inflationary Pha…
It was shown by Garriga and Vilenkin that the circular shape of nucleated cosmic strings, of zero loop-energy in de Sitter space, is stable in the sense that the ratio of the mean fluctuation amplitude to the loop radius is constant. This…
We describe a scenario for inflation in the framework of non-critical string theory, which does not employ an inflaton field. There is an exponential expansion of the volume of the Universe, induced by enormous entropy production in the…
Inflation of cosmic gauge and global strings is investigated by numerically solving the combined Einstein and field equations. Above some critical symmetry-breaking scales, the strings undergo inflation along the radial direction as well as…
Within the context of a super-critical (Liouville) string, we discuss (target-space) two-dimensional string cosmology. A numerical analysis indicates that the identification of time with the Liouville mode results in an expanding universe…
In cosmological models where local cosmic strings are formed at the end of a period of inflation, the perturbations are seeded both by the defects and by the quantum fluctuations. In a subset of these models, for example those based on…
Large field excursions are required in a number of axion models of inflation. These models also possess global cosmic strings, around which the axion follows a path mirroring the inflationary trajectory. Cosmic strings are thus an…
We study the evolution of simple cosmic string loop solutions in an inflationary universe. We show, for the particular case of circular loops, that periodic solutions do exist in a de Sitter universe, below a critical loop radius $R_c…
Starting with a study of the cosmological solution to the Einstein equations for the internal spacetime of an extreme supermassive cosmic string kink, and by evaluating the probability measure for the formation of such a kink in…
We consider a novel model of cosmic inflation. In our model one does not need any specific matter field to drive inflation, but inflation stems from the microscopic, Planck scale structure of spacetime, thus being of quantum gravitational…
Thermal inflation was proposed as a mechanism to dilute the density of cosmological moduli. Thermal inflation is driven by a complex scalar field possessing a large vacuum expectation value and a very flat potential, called a `flaton'. Such…
We consider an inflationary universe model in which the phase of accelerated expansion was preceded by a non-singular bounce and a period of contraction which involves a phase of deceleration. We follow fluctuations which exit the Hubble…
A class of well-motivated models of inflation end by producing cosmic strings. The current status of efforts to calculate and observe the signals from such models are outlined, with a particular emphasis on cosmic strings, and on the Cosmic…
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…
The idea of GUT implies that the universe went through a series of phase transitions during which topological defects are expected to form. We investigate here the genericity of cosmic strings formation in realistic SUSY GUTs models. We…
It is stressed that the kinematical problems of the standard cosmological model can be solved by a phase of accelerated contraction of the cosmic scale factor. Such a behaviour is only a particular case of a more general ``pre-big-bang"…
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…
This is a short review of string cosmology. We wish to connect string-scale physics as closely as possible to observables accessible to current or near-future experiments. Our possible best hope to do so is a description of inflation in…
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…
We prove that in the Hartle-Hawking approach to quantum cosmology the existence of an inflationary phase is a general property of minisuperspace models given by a closed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe containing a massless scalar field…
Inflation is now a basic ingredient of the modern cosmology. After reviewing the basic characteristics of inflation, we briefly discuss inflation in string and brane theories, focusing on the problem of the exit from inflation in these…