Cambridge High Energy Workshop 2022 - Phase Transitions and Topological Defects in the Early Universe

Session

Topological Defects - Gravitational waves

3 Aug 2022, 15:00

Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (CMSA), Harvard University

17. Gravitational Wave Gastronomy

David Dunsky (Berkeley U.)

03/08/2022, 15:00

The symmetry breaking of grand unified gauge groups in the early universe often leaves behind relic topological defects such as cosmic strings, domain walls, or monopoles. For some symmetry breaking chains, hybrid defects can form where cosmic strings attach to domain walls or monopoles attach to strings. In general, such hybrid defects are unstable and can leave behind unique gravitational...

18. Cosmic Archaeology with gravitational waves from (axion) cosmic strings

Yanou Cui (UC Riverside)

03/08/2022, 15:30

In this talk I will discuss important aspects of cosmology and particle physics that can be probed with GW signals from cosmic strings: probing the pre-BBN primordial dark age and axion physics. Gravitational waves (GWs) originating from the dynamics of a cosmic string network have the ability to probe many otherwise inaccessible properties of the early universe. In particular, I will discuss...

19. The Boring Monopole

Michael Nee (Oxford U.)

03/08/2022, 16:00

First order phase transitions play an important role in the cosmology of many theories of BSM physics. In this talk I will discuss how a population of magnetic monopoles present in the early universe can seed first order phase transitions, causing them to proceed much more rapidly than in the usual case. The field profiles describing the decay do not have the typically assumed O(3)/O(4)...