Current-carrying string loop motion: Limits on the classical description and shocks - art. no. 043510

The dynamical evolution of superconducting cosmic strings is much more comp licated than that of simple Goto-Nambu strings. For this reason, there are only a few known analytical solutions and no numerical ones. The goal of th is paper is to present numerical solutions for the dynamics of planar super conducting cosmic string loops. In most cases, a purely dynamical approach turns out to be insufficient to describe correctly the evolution of a loop due mainly to the appearance of shocks when spacelike currents are present and kinks for timelike currents, leading to yet unaccounted for quantum eff ects. The consequences of the quantum effects are mostly unknown at this ti me because the problem requires a dynamical field theory treatment. It is h owever likely that ultimately the result will be massive radiation in the f orm of charge carriers from the string.