Spontaneously broken global symmetries and cosmology

15 April 1984

journal article
research article
Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review D

Vol. 29 (8) , 1870-1871
https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.29.1870

Abstract

Phase transitions associated with spontaneously broken global symmetries, in case these occur in nature, can have important cosmological implications. This is illustrated through two examples. The first one shows how the spontaneous breaking of a global U(1) symmetry, present, for instance, in the minimal SU(5) model, can lead to an inflationary phase. The second example illustrates how topologically stable strings associated with the breaking of a U(1) symmetry make an appearance at (or near) the end of the inflationary era.

Keywords

SYMMETRY GROUP
COSMOLOGY
LIE GROUPS
PHASE TRANSITION
SYMMETRY BREAKING
QUANTUM MECHANICS
LIE GROUP
SYMMETRY GROUPS

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:

Inflation with SU(5)
Physical Review Letters, 1984
Conservation or violation of B − L in proton decay
Physics Letters B, 1979