GLOBAL TEXTURE AS THE ORIGIN OF COSMIC STRUCTURE

A pedagogical account of global texture is given. The generic occurrence of texture in unified theories is discussed. The dynamics of global texture are reviewed, and the "scaling solution" in an expanding universe described. The seeding of large scale structure through texture induced perturbations is described, as well as new numerical results on the predictions for the matter distribution today. Texture is shown to have significant advantages over the "standard" inflationary fluctuations in (i) having more power on large scales, and (ii) producing nonlinear structures at high redshift. The nongaussian nature of the perturbations is emphasised. Finally predictions for the cosmic microwave anisotropy are described.