Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis and Gamma-Ray Constraints on Cosmic Strings with a large Higgs condensate

Abstract

We consider constraints on cosmic strings from their emission of Higgs particles, in the case that the strings have a Higgs condensate with amplitude of order the string mass scale, assuming that a fraction of the energy of condensate can be turned into radiation near cusps. The injection of energy by the decaying Higgs particles affects the light element abundances predicted by standard Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), and also contributes to the Diffuse Gamma-Ray Background (DGRB) in the universe today. We examine the two main string scenarios (Nambu-Goto and field theory), and find that the primordial Helium abundance strongly constrains the string tension and the efficiency of the emission process in the NG scenario, while the strongest BBN constraint in the FT scenario comes from the Deuterium abundance. The Fermi-LAT measurement of the DGRB constrains the field theory scenario even more strongly than previously estimated from EGRET data, requiring that the product of the string tension μ and Newton's constant G is bounded by Gμ < 2.7x10^{-11}β_{ft}^{-2}, where β_{ft}^2 is the fraction of the strings' energy going into Higgs particles.

26 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables. Revised version with color figures, new references and extended discussion mostly in Sec. IV. Referee's suggestions are also included. To be published in PRD

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• Multi-messenger constraints on Abelian-Higgs cosmic string networks
• Type I Abelian Higgs strings: evolution and Cosmic Microwave Background constraints
• Inflation from High-Scale Supersymmetry Breaking
• Numerical simulations of necklaces in SU(2) gauge-Higgs field theory
• Axion Isocurvature Perturbations in Low-Scale Models of Hybrid Inflation
• Revised bounds on local cosmic strings from NANOGrav observations
• A window for cosmic strings
• Noninertial effects on nonrelativistic topological quantum scattering
• Scalar Casimir effect in a high-dimensional cosmic dispiration spacetime
• Quantum vacuum fluctuation effects in a quasi-periodically identified conical spacetime
• Dark Matter with Topological Defects in the Inert Doublet Model
• Scattering and bound states of a spin--1/2 neutral particle in the cosmic string spacetime
• Quantum Brownian motion for a particle in analog expanding cosmologies in the presence of disclination
• The Gravity of Dark Vortices: Effective Field Theory for Branes and Strings Carrying Localized Flux
• Soliton foam formation in the early Universe
• Dark matter cosmic string in the gravitational field of a black hole
• Scalar self-interaction in the spacetime of a cosmic dispiration
• Radiation of Supersymmetric Particles from Aharonov-Bohm R-string