Detecting cosmic string passage through the Earth by consequent global earthquake

TL;DR

This paper explores how cosmic strings passing through Earth could induce detectable global oscillations, potentially causing environmental damage, and discusses the use of accelerographs to identify such events even at very low string densities.

Contribution

It introduces a method to detect cosmic strings passing through Earth by analyzing induced global oscillations and demonstrates the sensitivity of accelerographs for such detection.

Findings

Cosmic string passage causes measurable Earth oscillations.

Oscillation amplitude depends linearly on string line density.

Detection possible at densities ten orders of magnitude below cosmological limits.

Abstract

Effects invoked by the passage of the cosmic string through the Earth are investigated. The cosmic string induces global oscillations of the Earth whose amplitude and acceleration both linearly depend on the string line density. For the line density maximally allowed by the cosmic observations, the oscillations are perceivable even to human beings and may cause serious damages to the environment. Use of the sophisticated accelerograph enables us to detect the string of a line density down to ten orders of magnitude smaller than the cosmologically relevant value.