Cosmic Strings in the Universe: Achievements and prospects of research
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, PARTICLES, FIELDS, GRAVITATION, AND ASTROPHYSICS
Cosmic Strings in the Universe: Achievements and Prospects of Research O. S. Sazhina and M. V. Sazhin Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Universitetskii pr. 13, Moscow, 119992 Russia email: [email protected]; [email protected] Received April 13, 2011
Abstract—Cosmic strings are linear structures of cosmological scales whose search has been actively con ducted in recent years. Progress in constructing theoretical models and investigating the properties of cosmic strings and a significant growth of observational resources provide extensive possibilities for the search of such objects by several independent observational methods. These methods include searching for the events of gravitational lensing of distant background sources by strings and searching for the distinctive cosmic micro wave background anisotropy structures induced by strings. We discuss these techniques and propose the methods of searching for strings oriented toward the latest spacecraft, including the Planck project. DOI: 10.1134/S1063776111130103
1. INTRODUCTION According to the currently available observational data on studying the expansion of the Universe using supernovae and on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy, the presentday Universe is in the stage of accelerated expansion. This is successfully explained by the presence of dark energy—a special form of vacuumtype energy [1]. However, the nature of the dark energy has not yet been established, which is a fundamental problem of modern cosmology and a key area of research at the interface between such dis ciplines as cosmology, astronomy, and particle physics. Investigating the dark energy of the early Universe, namely the possible soliton and solitonlike solutions, is of particular interest in the context of this problem. Stable onedimensional structures—cosmic strings, which emerge in all the most realistic models of parti cle physics, are such a solution [2, 3]. Studies in mod ern particle physics give ample evidence for the exist ence of new physics beyond the Standard Model. Cos mic strings emerge both within the Grand Unified Models and in the superstring theory [4, 5]. Detecting such objects would allow one not only to reveal the nature and trends in the development of the dark energy of the early Universe but also to study the energy scales unachievable in presentday accelera tors. Cosmic strings were first predicted as possible cos mological objects by Kibble in 1976 [6] and were actively studied subsequently by Zeldovich [7], Vilen kin, Shellard, and others [8–13]. The existence of cos mic strings is consistent with all of the cosmological observational data available to date and, moreover, is widely supported in theory and indirectly confirmed in observations.
2. BASIC PROPERTIES OF COSMIC STRINGS From an observational viewpoint, topological cos mic strings (solitons) are of greatest interest, because their formation mechanism (vacuum phase transi tions) is fairly simple and has been well studied ex
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