HEP Theory Journal Club

Constraining signatures of Cosmic Strings at Reionization

Bryce Cyr

McGill

In this talk, I will review topological defect formation in the early universe, and motivate how we can constrain such scenarios during the epoch of Reionization. I will also motivate how substructure on cosmic string loops (so called 'cusps') can source a low energy photon background in the universe which can be detected by an observation of the differential brightness temperature at Reionization. I will then compute this signal for both superconducting and non-superconducting strings.