Cosmic strings

Abstract

The topic of cosmic strings provides a bridge between the physics of the very small and the very large. They are predicted by some unified theories of particle interactions. If they exist, they may help to explain some of the largest-scale structures seen in the Universe today. They are 'topological defects' that may have been formed at phase transitions in the very early history of the Universe, analogous to those found in some condensed-matter systems -vortex lines in liquid helium, flux tubes in type-II superconductors, or disclination lines in liquid crystals. In this review, we describe what they are, why they have been hypothesized and what their cosmological implications would be. The relevant background from the standard models of particle physics and cosmology is described in section 1. In section 2, we review the idea of symmetry breaking in field theories, and show how the defects formed are constrained by the topology of the manifold of degenerate vacuum states. We also discuss the different types of cosmic strings that can appear in different field theories. Section 3 is devoted to the dynamics of cosmic strings, and section 4 to their interaction with other fields. The formation and evolution of cosmic strings in the early Universe is the subject of section 5, while section 6 deals with their observational implications.Finally, the present status of the theory is reviewed in section 7.

Stability of false vacuum in supersymmetric theories with cosmic strings

“…In a local minimum, jPj ¼ jNj from (6) and hSi is as given in (7). The ansatz functions for the scalar fields are a simple generalization of the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen string [34,35] (see also [36])…”

Kink interactions in the(1+1)-dimensionalφ6model

“…Apart from that, supersymmetric models with more complex vacuum manifolds and several types of kinks connecting the different vacua have also been discussed [13]. Special attention should be paid to configurations of strings or vortices [1, 14,15]. In particular, there are important results on quantum stabilization of strings [16][17][18] and strings/vortices/monopoles dynamics [19][20][21][22][23].…”

Reconnection of non-abelian cosmic strings

“…In this modern guise, the cosmic string network may consist of both fundamental strings, D-strings and wrapped D-branes. Reviews of these recent stringy developments can be found in [5] and [10], while earlier work on cosmic strings from the 1980's and early 90's is summarized in [11,12].…”