Gravitational radiation from cosmic strings and the microwave background

Abstract

Gravitational radiation sets the most stringent constraints on the cosmic string theory of galaxy formation. We calculate the temperature fluctuations in the microwave background radiation induced by gravitational radiation. The predicted anisotropies are consistent with the best current observational bounds. We also show that the total energy density in gravitational waves does not conflict with the standard nucleosynthesis arguments, and that the predicted timing residual for the millisecond pulsar does not (yet) exceed the measured value.