Lectures on Cosmic Topological Defects

Abstract

These lectures review certain topological defects and aspects of their cosmology. Unconventional material includes brief descriptions of electroweak defects, the structure of domain walls in non-Abelian theories, and the spectrum of magnetic monopoles in SU(5) Grand Unified theory.

Comments: 34 pages; lectures at the 2000 summer school in cosmology at ICTP, Trieste; minor correction in domain wall section