Strings, texture, and inflation

We examine mechanisms, several of which are proposed here, to generate structure formation, or to just add large-scale features, through either gauged or global cosmic strings or global texture, within the framework of inflation. We first explore the possibility that strings or texture form if there is no coupling between the topological theory and the inflaton or spacetime curvature, via (1) quantum creation, and (2) a sufficiently high reheat temperature. In addition, we examine the prospects for the inflaton field itself to generate strings or texture. Then, models with the string/texture field coupled to the curvature, and an equivalent model with coupling to the inflaton field, are considered in detail. The requirement that inflationary density fluctuations are not so large as to conflict with observations leads to a number of constraints on model parameters. We find that strings of relevance for structure formation can form in the absence of coupling to the inflaton or curvature through the process of quantum creation, but only if the strings are strongly type I, or if they are global strings. If formed after reheating, naturalness suggests that gauged cosmic strings correspond to a type-I superconductor. Similarly, gauged strings formed during inflation via conformal coupling ξ=1/6 to the spacetime curvature (in a model suggested by Yokoyama in order to evade the millisecond pulsar constraint on cosmic strings) are expected to be strongly type I