Related papers: Proliferation of sharp kinks on cosmic (super-)str…
Superconducting cosmic strings can give transient electromagnetic signatures that we argue are most evident at radio frequencies. We investigate the three different kinds of radio bursts from cusps, kinks, and kink-kink collisions on…
We account for particle emission and gravitational radiation from cosmic string loops to determine their effect on the loop distribution and observational signatures of strings. The effect of particle emission is that the number density of…
Cosmic superstrings of string theory differ from conventional cosmic strings of field theory. We review how the physical and cosmological properties of the macroscopic string loops influence experimental searches for these relics from the…
The time-dependent metric of a cosmic string leads to an effective interaction between the string and photons - the "gravitational Aharonov-Bohm" effect -- and causes cosmic strings to emit light. We evaluate the radiation of pairs of…
We describe a new mechanism, whose ingredients are realised in string compactifications, for the formation of cosmic (super)string networks. Oscillating string loops grow when their tension $\mu$ decreases with time. If $2H + \dot{\mu}/\mu…
We extend and develop our previous work on the evolution of a network of cosmic strings. The new treatment is based on an analysis of the probability distribution of the end-to-end distance of a randomly chosen segment of left-moving string…
We study the formation of cosmic strings by confining a stochastic magnetic field into flux tubes in a numerical simulation. We use overdamped evolution in a potential that is minimized when the flux through each face in the simulation…
We study the effects of friction on the scaling evolution of string networks in condensed matter and cosmological contexts. We derive a generalized `one-scale' model with the string correlation length $L$ and velocity $v$ as dynamical…
When moduli roll in the early universe, all physical scales - including string tensions - simultaneously evolve. The dynamics of cosmic string loops with time-varying tension can produce cosmic string loop trackers in which most of the…
A novel mechanism to produce a cosmic network of fundamental superstrings based on a time-varying string tension has been recently proposed. It has been found that fundamental superstrings can grow in a kinating background driven by the…
We study the occurrence of cuspy events on a light string stretched between two Y-junctions with fixed heavy strings. We first present an analytic study and give a solid criterion to discriminate between cuspy and non-cuspy string…
The strong beams of high-frequency gravitational waves (GW) emitted by cusps and kinks of cosmic strings are studied in detail. As a consequence of these beams, the stochastic ensemble of GW's generated by a cosmological network of…
We develop a semi-analytical model to describe the cosmological evolution of networks of cosmic strings with small-scale structure, by extending the velocity-dependent one-scale model to include an additional lengthscale describing the…
The dynamical evolution of superconducting cosmic strings is much more complicated than that of simple Goto-Nambu strings. For this reason, there are only a few known analytical solutions and no numerical ones. The goal of this paper is to…
Under certain conditions the collision and intercommutation of two cosmic strings can result in the formation of a third string, with the three strings then remaining connected at Y-junctions. The kinematics and dynamics of collisions of…
A network of cosmic strings would lead to gravitational waves which may be detected by pulsar timing or future interferometers. The details of the gravitational wave signal depend on the distribution of cosmic string loops, which are…
We analyze the shapes of cosmic string loops found in large-scale simulations of an expanding-universe string network. The simulation does not include gravitational back reaction, but we model that process by smoothing the loop using…
We develop velocity-dependent models describing the evolution of string networks that involve several types of interacting strings, each with a different tension. These incorporate the formation of Y-type junctions with links stretching…
Complicated cosmic string loops will fragment until they reach simple, non-intersecting ("stable") configurations. Through extensive numerical study we characterize these attractor loop shapes including their length, velocity, kink, and…
We explore the formation of cosmic string Y-junctions when strings of two different types collide, which has recently become important since string theory can yield cosmic strings of distinct types. Using a model containing two types of…