Topological Defects and Inflation

Abstract

In the context of supersymmetric models, we analyze the production of topological defects at the end of inflation driven by a conjugate pair of inflaton fields which are non-singlets under the continuous symmetry group of the theory. We find that magnetic monopoles of mass on the order of $10^{13}\ GeV$ can survive inflation and be present in our galaxy at an observable level. We also consider cosmic strings as well as domain walls.