Cosmic strings and scalar tensor gravity

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the study of cosmic strings. We studied the values for the Higgs mass and string coupling for which the gravitational effect of an infinite cosmic string in the context of the Einstein theory is not only locally but also globally weak. We conclude this happens for strings formed at scales less or equal to the Planck one with Higgs mass being less or equal to the boson vectorial mass. Then we examined the metric of an isolated self-gravitating abelian-Higgs vortex in dilatonic gravity for arbitrary coupling of the vortex fields to the dilaton. We looked for solutions in both massless and massive dilaton gravity. We compared our results to existing metrics for strings in Einstein and .Jordan-Brans-Dicke theories. We explored the generalisation of Bogomolnyi arguments for our vortices and commented on the effects on test particles. We then included the presence of an axion field and examined the metric of an isolated self-gravitating axionic-dilatonic string. Finally we studied dilatonic strings through black hole solutions in string theory. We concluded that the horizon of non-extreme charged black holes supports the long-range fields of the Nielsen-Olesen string that can be considered as black hole hair and whose gravitational effect is in general the production of a conical deficit into the metric of the black hole background. We also concluded that the effect of the dilaton on the horizon of these black holes is to generate an additional charge.