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arXiv · 0802.0711

Cosmic Sparks from Superconducting Strings

Tanmay Vachaspati
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Abstract

We investigate cosmic sparks from cusps on superconducting cosmic strings in light of the recently discovered millisecond radio burst by Lorimer et al [1]. We find that the observed duration, fluence, spectrum, and event rate can be reasonably explained by Grand Unification scale superconducting cosmic strings that carry currents \sim 10^5 GeV. The superconducting string model predicts an event rate that falls off only as S^{-1/2}, where S is the energy flux, and hence predicts a population of very bright bursts. Other surveys, with different observational parameters, are shown to impose tight constraints on the superconducting string model.

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Tanmay Vachaspati. 2008-09-29. Cosmic Sparks from Superconducting Strings. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.101.141301

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