Evading the pulsar constraints on the cosmic string tension in supergravity inflation

Abstract

The cosmic string is a useful probe of the early Universe and may give us a clue to physics at high energy scales which particle accelerators cannot reach. Although the most promising tool to observe it is the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the constraint from gravitational waves is becoming so stringent that detecting its signatures in CMB may be impossible. In this paper, we construct a scenario that contains cosmic strings observable in the cosmic microwave background while evading the constraint imposed by the recent pulsar timing data. We argue that cosmic strings with relatively large tension are allowed by diluting loops contributing to the relevant frequency range of the gravitational wave background. We also present a particle physics model to realize such dilution in the context of chaotic inflation in supergravity, where the phase transition occurs during inflation due to the time-dependence of the Hubble induced mass. © 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd.