Gravitating Semilocal strings

TL;DR

This paper investigates the properties of semilocal strings coupled to gravity, focusing on BPS solutions where gauge and Higgs boson masses are equal, within the context of the Standard Model limit.

Contribution

It analyzes the gravitational effects on semilocal strings, especially in the BPS limit, extending understanding of their solutions in a cosmological setting.

Findings

Semilocal strings can exist as stable solutions when coupled to gravity.

The BPS limit provides simplified, analytically tractable solutions.

Gravitational effects influence the structure and stability of semilocal strings.

Abstract

We discuss the properties of semilocal strings minimally coupled to gravity. Semilocal strings are solutions of the bosonic sector of the Standard Model in the limit $\sin^2\theta_W=1$ (where $\theta_W$ is the Weinberg angle) and correspond to embedded Abelian-Higgs strings for a particular choice of the scalar doublet. We focus on the limit where the gauge boson mass is equal to the Higgs boson mass such that the solutions fulfill the Bogomolnyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) bound.