Probing Particle Physics from Top Down with Cosmic Strings

Understand

Making use of the wealth of new observational data coming from the sky it is possible to constrain particle physics theories beyond the Standard Model.

• One way to do this is illustrated in this article: a subset of theories admits cosmic string solutions, topologically stable matter field configurations.
• In these models, a network of cosmic strings inevitably forms in the early universe and persists to the present time.
• The gravitational effects of these strings leads to cosmological signatures which could be visible in current and future data.