Correlations between black holes formed in cosmic string breaking

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation and correlation of black holes from cosmic string breaking, revealing differences in state enhancement factors and implications for string cosmology.

Contribution

It introduces the distinction between correlated and uncorrelated black holes in cosmic string breaking and analyzes their formation rates and physical analogies.

Findings

Uncorrelated black holes have twice the state enhancement factor of correlated pairs.

Formation of uncorrelated black holes resembles thermal nucleation more than particle-antiparticle creation.

Black hole formation rate is higher than previous estimates but still insufficient to alter string cosmology.

Abstract

An analysis of cosmic string breaking with the formation of black holes attached to the ends reveals a remarkable feature: the black holes can be correlated or uncorrelated. We find that, as a consequence, the number-of-states enhancement factor in the action governing the formation of uncorrelated black holes is twice the one for a correlated pair. We argue that when an uncorrelated pair forms at the ends of the string, the physics involved is more analogous to thermal nucleation than to particle-antiparticle creation. Also, we analyze the process of intercommuting strings induced by black hole annihilation and merging. Finally, we discuss the consequences for grand unified strings. The process whereby uncorrelated black holes are formed yields a rate which significantly improves over those previously considered, but still not enough to modify string cosmology.