Cosmic Sparks from Superconducting Strings

TL;DR

This paper proposes that superconducting cosmic strings at the Grand Unification scale could explain millisecond radio bursts, predicting a population of very bright events and constraining models with observational data.

Contribution

It links superconducting cosmic strings to observed radio bursts and analyzes their predicted event rate and brightness distribution.

Findings

Explains millisecond radio bursts with superconducting cosmic strings.

Predicts a flux-dependent event rate falling off as S^{-1/2}.

Constrains string models based on survey data.

Abstract

We investigate cosmic sparks from cusps on superconducting cosmic strings in light of the recently discovered millisecond radio burst by Lorimer et al [1]. We find that the observed duration, fluence, spectrum, and event rate can be reasonably explained by Grand Unification scale superconducting cosmic strings that carry currents \sim 10^5 GeV. The superconducting string model predicts an event rate that falls off only as S^{-1/2}, where S is the energy flux, and hence predicts a population of very bright bursts. Other surveys, with different observational parameters, are shown to impose tight constraints on the superconducting string model.