Production of topological defects at the end of inflation

TL;DR

This paper reviews how different inflationary models, including supersymmetric grand unified theories and braneworld scenarios, predict the formation of topological defects and discusses observational constraints from cosmic microwave background and gravitational waves.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of inflationary models that produce topological defects and analyzes observational data constraints on these models.

Findings

Constraints on model parameters from CMB data

Limits on defect formation from gravitational wave observations

Comparison of different inflationary scenarios

Abstract

Hybrid inflation within supersymmetric grand unified theories, as well as inflation through brane collisions within braneworld cosmological models, lead to the formation of one-dimensional defects. Observational data, mainly from the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies but also from the gravitational wave background, impose constraints on the free parameters of the models. I review these inflationary models and discuss the constraints from the currently available data.