Radio Broadcasts from Superconducting Strings

TL;DR

This paper explores radio signals from superconducting cosmic strings, identifying the dominant burst types and showing that their event rates could be high enough for detection, thus constraining string models.

Contribution

It analyzes different radio burst mechanisms from superconducting strings and highlights the significance of kink bursts in observational searches.

Findings

Kink bursts dominate the event rate.

Event rates can reach several per day at 1 Jy flux.

Non-detections can constrain string parameters.

Abstract

Superconducting cosmic strings can give transient electromagnetic signatures that we argue are most evident at radio frequencies. We investigate the three different kinds of radio bursts from cusps, kinks, and kink-kink collisions on superconducting strings. We find that the event rate is dominated by kink bursts in a range of parameters that are of observational interest, and can be quite high (several a day at 1 Jy flux) for a canonical set of parameters. In the absence of events, the search for radio transients can place stringent constraints on superconducting cosmic strings.