2010/06/04 by A. Achúcarro, Ana Achúcarro, Gerard J. Verbiest +1 · 10 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #COSMIC cancer database #Cosmic ray #Cosmic string #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Nuclear physics #Order (exchange) #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #String (physics) #Theoretical physics #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.105.021601
published in Physical Review Letters 105(2), 021601 (American Physical Society) · 5 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication by PRL
arxiv created 2010/06/04 · openalex publication_date 2010/07/09 · arxiv updated 2014/11/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We report the first observation of multiple intercommutation (more than two successive reconnections) of Abelian Higgs cosmic strings at ultrahigh collision speeds, and the formation of ``kink trains'' with up to four closely spaced left- or right-moving kinks, in the deep type-II regime 16\ensuremath≤\ensuremathβ\ensuremath≤64 (where \ensuremathβ=mscalar2/mgauge2). The minimum critical speed for double reconnection goes down from \ensuremath∼0.98c at \ensuremathβ=1 to \ensuremath∼0.86c for \ensuremathβ=64. The process leading to the second intercommutation changes with \ensuremathβ: it involves an expanding loop if \ensuremathβ\ensuremath≥16, but only a radiation blob if 1<\ensuremathβ\ensuremath≤8. Triple reconnections are generic in the loop-mediated regime for collision parameters on the boundary between single and double reconnection. For \ensuremathβ=16 we observe quadruple events. We comment on the effect of strongly repulsive core interactions on the small scale structure on the strings and their gravitational wave emission.