Reconciliation between Cosmological Inflation and Cosmic Strings

by Prof. Mairi Sakellariadou (King's College London)

Thursday 8 Feb 2007, 16:30 → 17:30 Europe/Brussels

e349

For a number of years, inflation and topological defects have been considered as two incompatible, or two competing aspects of modern cosmology. I will first introduce inflation (origin, successes and open questions), and then topological defects (in particular cosmic strings). I will show the genericity of cosmic string formation in SUSY GUTs, and of string-like objects in brane cosmology. The reconciliation between inflation and strings will then constrain the theoretical models, implying a number of consequences.

Slides sakellariadou.pdf