Cosmic string scaling in flat space

TL;DR

This paper simulates the evolution of infinite cosmic strings in flat space, confirming that their small-scale wiggles and inter-string distances follow universal scaling laws, implying similar behavior in expanding universes.

Contribution

It provides a precise simulation demonstrating that cosmic string wiggles and spacing scale universally, supporting the idea that small-scale structure persists in expanding universes without gravitational damping.

Findings

Wiggles on strings follow a universal power spectrum scaling law.

Average distance between long strings scales with time.

Small-scale structure is likely to scale in expanding universe.

Abstract

We investigate the evolution of infinite strings as a part of a complete cosmic string network in flat space. We perform a simulation of the network which uses functional forms for the string position and thus is exact to the limits of computer arithmetic. Our results confirm that the wiggles on the strings obey a scaling law described by universal power spectrum. The average distance between long strings also scales accurately with the time. These results suggest that small-scale structure will also scale in expanding universe, even in the absence of gravitational damping.