Formation, Interaction and Observation of Topological Defects [chapter]

Tanmay Vachaspati
2000 Topological Defects and the Non-Equilibrium Dynamics of Symmetry Breaking Phase Transitions  
In these lectures, I describe the formation of defect distributions in first-order phase transitions, then briefly discuss the relevance of defect interactions after a phase transition and the observational signatures of cosmic strings. Some open questions are also discussed.
doi:10.1007/978-94-011-4106-2_4 fatcat:cz6d2vnnsvcrbcz2p7q7emctt4