Vortices in de Sitter spacetimes

We investigate vortex solutions to the Abelian Higgs field equations in a four-dimensional de Sitter spacetime background. We obtain both static and dynamic solutions with axial symmetry that are generalizations of the Nielsen-Olesen gauge vortices in flat spacetime. The static solution is located in the static patch of de Sitter space. We numerically solve the field equations in an inflationary (big bang) patch and find a time dependent vortex solution, whose effect to create a deficit angle in the spacetime. We show that this solution can be interpreted in terms of a renormalization group flow in accord with a generalized c-theorem, providing evidence in favour of a dS/CFT correspondence. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.