Note on Structure Formation from Cosmic String Wakes

TL;DR

This paper provides a quantitative analysis of how cosmic string wakes can lead to nonlinear matter density fluctuations and halo formation, highlighting their potential observability and the challenges involved.

Contribution

It offers a novel quantitative description of dark matter halo distribution resulting from cosmic string wakes, advancing understanding of their role in structure formation.

Findings

Distribution of dark matter halos from cosmic string wakes calculated

Strong positional correlations of these halos identified

Discussion of detection challenges due to small size and complex dynamics

Abstract

The search for cosmic strings has been of renewed interest with the advent of precision cosmology. In this note we give a quantitative description of the nonlinear matter density fluctuations that can form from a scaling network of cosmic string wakes. Specifically, we compute the distribution of dark matter halos. These halos would possess strong correlations in position space that should have survived until today. We also discuss the challenges involved in their detection due to their small size and the complex dynamics of their formation.