Cosmic strings in hidden sectors: 2. Cosmological and astrophysical signatures
- Physics Department, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287 (United States)
Cosmic strings can arise in hidden sector models with a spontaneously broken Abelian symmetry group. We have studied the couplings of the Standard Model fields to these so-called dark strings in the companion paper. Here we survey the cosmological and astrophysical observables that could be associated with the presence of dark strings in our universe with an emphasis on low-scale models, perhaps TeV. Specifically, we consider constraints from nucleosynthesis and CMB spectral distortions, and we calculate the predicted fluxes of diffuse gamma ray cascade photons and cosmic rays. For strings as light as TeV, we find that the predicted level of these signatures is well below the sensitivity of the current experiments, and therefore low scale cosmic strings in hidden sectors remain unconstrained. Heavier strings with a mass scale in the range 10{sup 13} GeV to 10{sup 15} GeV are at tension with nucleosynthesis constraints.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- SCOAP3, CERN, Geneva (Switzerland)
- OSTI ID:
- 22454507
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2014, Issue 12; Other Information: PUBLISHER-ID: JCAP12(2014)040; OAI: oai:repo.scoap3.org:5252; Article funded by SCOAP3. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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