STATISTICS OF PECULIAR VELOCITIES FROM COSMIC STRINGS

We calculate the probability distribution of a single component of pec uliar velocities due to cosmic strings, smoothed over regions with a r adius of several h-l Mpc. The probability distribution is shown to be Gaussian to good accuracy, in agreement with the distribution of pecul iar velocities deduced from the 1.9-Jy IRAS redshift survey. Using the normalization of parameters of the cosmic string model from CMB measu rements, we show that the rms values for peculiar velocities inferred from IRAS are consistent with the cosmic string model, provided that l ong strings have some small-scale structure.