Gravitational Lensing Signature of Long Cosmic Strings

The gravitational lensing by long, wiggly cosmic strings is shown to produce a large number of lensed images of a background source. In addition to pairs of images on either side of the string, a number of small images outline the string due to small-scale structure on the string. This image pattern could provide a highly distinctive signature of cosmic strings. Since the optical depth for multiple imaging of distant quasar sources by long strings may be comparable to that by galaxies, these image patterns should be clearly observable in the next generation of redshift surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.Comment: 4 pages, revtex with 3 postscript figures include

Gauge Invariant Density and Temperature Perturbations in the Quasi-Newtonian Formulation

We give an improved formalism for calculating the evolution of density fluctuations and temperature perturbations in flat universes. Our equations are general enough to treat the perturbations in collisionless relics like massive neutrinos. We find this formulation to be simpler to use than gauge dependent and other gauge-invariant formalisms. We show how to calculate temperature fluctuations (including multipole moments) and transfer functions, including the case of collisionless relics like massive neutrinos. We call this formalism "quasi-Newtonian" because the equations for the potential and cold matter fluctuation evolution have the same form as the Newtonian gravitational equations in an expanding space. The density fluctuation variable also has the same form inside and outside of the horizon which allows the initial conditions to be specified in a simple intuitive way. Our sample calculations demonstrate how to use these equations in cosmological models which have hot, cold, and mixed dark matter and adiabatic (isentropic) or isocurvature modes. We also give an approximation which may be used to get transfer functions quickly.Comment: 1 LaTEX text file (29 pages), and a uuencoded gzip'ed tar file containing 7 Postscript figure

Wave effect in gravitational lensing by a cosmic string

The wave effect in the gravitational lensing phenomenon by a straight cosmic string is investigated. The interference pattern is expressed in terms of a simple formula. We demonstrate that modulations of the interfered wave amplitude can be a unique signature of the wave effect. We briefly mention a possible chance of detecting the wave effect in future gravitational wave observatories.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Cosmic Strings Lens Phenomenology: Model of Poisson Energy Distribution

We present a novel approach for investigating lens phenomenology of cosmic strings in order to elaborate detection strategies in galaxy deep field images. To account for the complexity of the projected energy distribution of string networks we assume their lens effects to be similar to those of a straight string carrying a {\em random} lineic energy distribution. In such a model we show that, unlike the case of uniform strings, critical phenomena naturally appear. We explore the properties of the critical lines and caustics. In particular, assuming that the energy coherence length along the string is much smaller than the observation scale, we succeeded in computing the total length of critical lines per unit string length and found it to be $4/\sqrt{3} {\bf E}(3/4)$. The length of the associated caustic lines can also be computed to be $16/(\pi \sqrt{3}) {\bf E}(3/4)$. The picture we obtain here for the phenomenology of cosmic string detection is clearly at variance with common lore.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. Minor correction

Constraints on Self-Interacting Dark Matter

We consider the growth of density perturbations in the presence of self--interacting dark matter, SIDM, proposed by Carlson, Machacek and Hall (1992). We determine the range of values for the coupling constant $\lambda$ and the particle mass $m^\prime$, for which the power spectrum lies in the ``allowed" range based on constraints from the IRAS galaxy survey and damped Lyman--$\alpha$ systems. Our results show that no combination of parameters can meet both limits. We consider constraints on the \2-2 scatterings which keep the SIDM particles in pressure equilibrium, and we show that if such interactions maintain pressure equilibrium down to the present, they will be strong enough to disrupt galaxy mergers and may lead to stripping of galaxy halos as galaxies move through the dark matter background of these particles. Hence, we also investigate the evolution of large-scale structure in the SIDM model when the particles drop out of pressure equilibrium at some higher redshift. The resulting free-streaming leads to an additional suppression of small-scale perturbations, but it does not significantly affect our results.Comment: 19 pages compressed post-script (3 figures included

Cosmic Strings in a Braneworld Theory with Metastable Gravitons

If the graviton possesses an arbitrarily small (but nonvanishing) mass, perturbation theory implies that cosmic strings have a nonzero Newtonian potential. Nevertheless in Einstein gravity, where the graviton is strictly massless, the Newtonian potential of a cosmic string vanishes. This discrepancy is an example of the van Dam--Veltman--Zakharov (VDVZ) discontinuity. We present a solution for the metric around a cosmic string in a braneworld theory with a graviton metastable on the brane. This theory possesses those features that yield a VDVZ discontinuity in massive gravity, but nevertheless is generally covariant and classically self-consistent. Although the cosmic string in this theory supports a nontrivial Newtonian potential far from the source, one can recover the Einstein solution in a region near the cosmic string. That latter region grows as the graviton's effective linewidth vanishes (analogous to a vanishing graviton mass), suggesting the lack of a VDVZ discontinuity in this theory. Moreover, the presence of scale dependent structure in the metric may have consequences for the search for cosmic strings through gravitational lensing techniques.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, revtex. Improved discussion of interpolating solution. To be published in Phys. Rev.