Status of Cosmic Strings and Stringy Inflation

[twistor]

Which is the status of cosmic strings? Could they be related to inflation? Which are the most promising scenarios in which inflation arises/could arise in some way from a string cosmology?
What do you think of the following papers?
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507205
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9812483?

 

[jedishrfu]

This seems like a homework assignment or project so before we can help why not elaborate more on what you think? this would allow others to comment better on your understanding of the topic.

 

[bapowell]

Cosmic strings are generally considered as an alternative to inflation when it comes to the formation of structure in the early universe. They were competitors for a while until WMAP showed that the density perturbations were dominantly adiabatic which is a hallmark prediction of inflation, not cosmic strings. It is still possible that cosmic strings formed in the early universe and they they contributed to structure formation, but they would contribute a very small amount.

Note that cosmic strings are not necessarily related to string theory or string cosmology -- different kind of string.

 

[twistor]

So they could be out there (cosmic strings), but would have little contribution to structure formation. Is that right?

 

[bapowell]

So they could be out there (cosmic strings), but would have little contribution to structure formation. Is that right?

Yes. I don't recall the upper limits, though.