Cosmic Strings: Topological Fossils of the Hot Big Bang

MAR 01, 1989

Some grand unified theories require that stringy exotic matter from the very early universe persist to the present, with astrophysically observable consequences.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881200

William H. Press

David N. Spergel

Was the physics of the early universe like the physics of a rotating bucket of superfluid helium? Condensed matter physicists know that phase transitions can form exotic topological objects, such as quantized vortices in superfluid helium or vortex lines of magnetic field in superconductors. In recent years cosmologists have been exploring whether analogous phenomena occurred in the early universe. Cosmic strings, remnants of an ultrahightemperature phase transition at $10^{29} K,$ may have seeded galaxy formation and could have given rise to other effects observable in the universe today.

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More about the authors

William H. Press, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

David N. Spergel, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.