Structure formation with strings plus inflation: a new paradigm

Abstract

Recent developments in inflation model building, based on supersymmetry, have produced compelling models in which strings are produced at the end of inflation. In such models the cosmological perturbations are seeded both by the defects and by the quantum fluctuations. We show that such models produce qualitatively new and desirable predictions for CMB anisotropies and the CDM power spectrum. This remark should put an end to the long term animosity between defect and inflationary scenarios of structure formation.