Faculty Mentor
Mike Kavic
Major/Area of Research
Physics
Description
Cosmic strings, speculative one-dimensional objects, are thought to result from spontaneous, electroweak symmetry-breaking phase transitions in the early universe. If cosmic strings exist, they could extract energy from spinning black holes via the Penrose process. Although theoretically motivated, cosmic strings have not yet been observed. We propose an indirect method of observing a cosmic string by investigating a pulsar-black hole binary system, using high precision observations of pulsars. We then aim to place bounds on cosmic string abundance and tension.
Included in
Energy Extraction From Black Holes by Cosmic Strings
Cosmic strings, speculative one-dimensional objects, are thought to result from spontaneous, electroweak symmetry-breaking phase transitions in the early universe. If cosmic strings exist, they could extract energy from spinning black holes via the Penrose process. Although theoretically motivated, cosmic strings have not yet been observed. We propose an indirect method of observing a cosmic string by investigating a pulsar-black hole binary system, using high precision observations of pulsars. We then aim to place bounds on cosmic string abundance and tension.