Blow up analysis for a cosmic strings equation

In this paper we develop a blow up analysis for solutions of a planar semilinear elliptic equation involving exponential nonlinearities. Such solutions describe cosmic strings, and we show how their blow up behaviour is characterised by new and surprising phenomena. For example in some cases, the blow up profile of the solution is described in terms of a differential problem that bares a geometrical meaning in the context of the uniformization of the Riemann sphere with conical singularities.