Cosmic string production towards the end of brane inflation

Abstract

Towards the end of the brane inflationary epoch in the brane world, cosmic strings (but not texture, domain walls or monopoles) are copiously produced during brane collision. These cosmic strings are Dp-branes with (p - 1) dimensions compactified. We elaborate on this prediction of the superstring theory description of the brane world. Using the data on the temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background, we estimate the cosmic string tension μ to be around Gμ ≃ 10-7. This in turn implies that the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background comes mostly from inflation, but with a component (of order 10%) from cosmic strings. This cosmic string effect should also be observable in gravitational wave detectors and maybe even pulsar timing measurements. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.