Cosmic Strings, Inflation, and Gravity Waves

Understand

We investigate the impact of Coleman-Weinberg inflation on the stochastic gravity wave background spectrum emitted by intermediate scale cosmic strings.

• The string network is partially inflated and re-enters the horizon at later times after the end of inflation, such that the short string loops are not produced.
• This leads to a significant modification of the gravity wave spectrum that we explore in detail.
• We find that Coleman-Weinberg inflation can help to satisfy the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) bound for dimensionless string tension values in the range $G\mu > 1.1\times 10^{-10}$.