Gravitational wave bursts from cosmic superstring reconnections

2009/01/31 by Mark Jackson, Mark G. Jackson, Xavier Siemens
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph.CO #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2009/06/089

published as JHEP 0906:089,2009 · 26 pages, 6 figures; v2: references added and typos corrected

arxiv created 2009/03/01 · openalex publication_date 2009/06/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We compute the gravitational waveform produced by cosmic superstring reconnections. This is done by first constructing the superstring reconnection trajectory, which closely resembles that of classical, instantaneous reconnection but with the singularities smoothed out due to the string path integral. We then evaluate the graviton vertex operator in this background to obtain the burst amplitude. The result is compared to the detection threshold for current and future gravitational wave detectors, finding that neither bursts nor the stochastic background would be detectable by Advanced LIGO. This disappointing but anticipated conclusion holds even for the most optimistic values of the reconnection probability and loop sizes.

Citations

• Cosmic String Detection via Microlensing of Stars
• Cosmic Strings and Weak Gravitational Lensing
• Gravitational radiation by cosmic strings in a junction
• Analytic study of small scale structure on cosmic strings
• Stochastic gravitational wave background from light cosmic strings
• Topology of cosmic domains and strings
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (in "The Review of Particle Properties" 2004)
• Introduction to Cosmic F- and D-Strings