Cosmic Superstrings Revisited

Abstract

It is possible that superstrings, as well as other one-dimensional branes, could have been produced in the early universe and then expanded to cosmic size today. I discuss the conditions under which this will occur, and the signatures of these strings. Such cosmic superstrings could be the brightest objects visible in gravitational wave astronomy, and might be distinguishable from gauge theory cosmic strings by their network properties.

Comments: 18 pages, 3 figures. Presented at the Mitchell Conference on Superstring Cosmology, GR17, Cosmo 04, and the 2004 APS-DPF Meeting. v2: typos fixed, references added, some added discussion of pulsar bounds and Hagedorn transitions