Light from cosmic strings

Journal Article · Tue Feb 15 00:00:00 EST 2011 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.83.043528· OSTI ID:21513094

Steer, Daniele A; Vachaspati, Tanmay ^[1]

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1. APC 10 rue Alice Domon et Leonie Duquet, 75205 Paris Cedex 13 (France)

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 photons from cosmic strings and find that the emission from cusps, kinks and kink-kink collisions occurs with a flat spectrum at all frequencies up to the string scale. Further, cusps emit a beam of photons, kinks emit along a curve, and the emission at a kink-kink collision is in all directions. The emission of light from cosmic strings could provide an important new observational signature of cosmic strings that is within reach of current experiments for a range of string tensions.

• OSTI ID: 21513094
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 83, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.83.043528; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
AHARONOV-BOHM EFFECT
BEAMS
COLLISIONS
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
CUSPED GEOMETRIES
EMISSION
INTERACTIONS
METRICS
PHOTONS
SPECTRA
STRING MODELS
TIME DEPENDENCE
VISIBLE RADIATION
BOSONS
COMPOSITE MODELS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
EXTENDED PARTICLE MODEL
MAGNETIC FIELD CONFIGURATIONS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
OPEN CONFIGURATIONS
PARTICLE MODELS
QUARK MODEL
RADIATIONS