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Metastable cosmic strings are broken at the start

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arxiv 2601.04320 v1 pith:EEULR2CL submitted 2026-01-07 hep-ph astro-ph.CO

Metastable cosmic strings are broken at the start

classification hep-ph astro-ph.CO
keywords stringsbreakingcosmiclargermetastablenetworkaboveamount
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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We show that metastable cosmic strings break at early times, either via finite-temperature effects or by attaching to pre-existing monopoles during network percolation. The resulting segments can be initially super-horizon in size and thus persist for a significant amount of time. If the strings do not re-percolate, the network's eventual destruction is typically due to this early-time breaking rather than late-time quantum tunnelling. Survival of strings to epochs probed by NANOGrav requires $m_M^2/\mu\gtrsim 10^3$, where $m_M$ and $\mu$ are the monopole mass and the string tension respectively, over an order of magnitude larger than previous estimates. We also revisit quantum-tunnelling induced breaking. Results from numerical simulations suggest that this occurs mainly at rare high-tension points on the strings, yielding a rate much larger than is usually assumed. We briefly discuss the related scenario of flux tubes in a dark QCD-like hidden sector with dark-quark masses above the confinement scale.

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Cited by 5 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. The decay rate of metastable cosmic strings beyond the thin-string approximation

    hep-ph 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    Lattice simulations find the bounce action for metastable cosmic string decay suppressed compared to thin-string estimates, implying faster decay.

  2. New gravitational-wave templates for metastable cosmic strings: Loop breaking versus network collapse

    hep-ph 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    Metastable cosmic strings produce a gravitational wave background that is best modeled with three parameters (string tension Gμ plus independent time scales t_LB and t_NC), yielding a compact analytical spectrum when ...

  3. LISA Reconstruction Landscape for Metastable Cosmic Strings

    hep-ph 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0

    LISA can reconstruct metastable cosmic-string tension and lifetime when it samples the tail-to-plateau transition, with residual κ_CS sensitivity possible even in high-SNR plateau-like spectra.

  4. Thermal Metastable Strings in One-Scale Models and Gravitational Waves

    hep-ph 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    Thermal effects shift the PTA-compatible parameter region in a minimal dark-sector model to lower dark fine-structure constant and higher monopole-to-string-tension ratio by making thermally induced nucleation the dom...

  5. Metastable strings at PTAs: classical stability analysis

    hep-ph 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 4.0

    Classical instabilities in metastable strings from two-step symmetry breaking can restrict the viable parameter space for explaining the PTA gravitational wave signal.