2005/11/30 by Vitaly Vanchurin, Ken D. Olum, Alexander Vilenkin · 7 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.74.063527
published as Phys.Rev. D74 (2006) 063527 · Added discussion of gravitational wave bounds; other minor changes
arxiv created 2006/06/20 · openalex publication_date 2006/09/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the spectrum of loops as a part of a complete network of cosmic strings in flat spacetime. After a long transient regime, characterized by production of small loops at the scale of the initial conditions, it appears that a true scaling regime takes over. In this final regime the characteristic length of loops scales as 0.1t, in contrast to earlier simulations which found tiny loops. We expect the expanding-universe behavior to be qualitatively similar. If this expectation is correct, then the large loop sizes have important cosmological implications. In particular, the nucleosynthesis bound then becomes G\ensuremathμ\ensuremath\lesssim10^\ensuremath-7, much tighter than that obtained from earlier analyses.