Cosmic strings: Gravitation without local curvature
Abstract
Cosmic strings are very long, thin structures which might stretch over vast reaches of the universe. If they exist, they would have been formed during phase transitions in the very early universe. The space-time surrounding a straight cosmic string is flat but nontrivial: A two-dimensional spatial section is a cone rather than a plane. This feature leads to unique gravitational effects. The flatness of the cone means that many of the gravitational effects can be understood with no mathematics beyond trigonometry. This includes the observational predictions of the double imaging of quasars and the truncation of the images of galaxies.
- Publication:
-
American Journal of Physics
- Pub Date:
- May 1987
- DOI:
- 10.1119/1.15145
- Bibcode:
- 1987AmJPh..55..401H
- Keywords:
-
- 98.80.Bp;
- 98.80.Dr;
- 95.30.Sf;
- Origin and formation of the Universe;
- Relativity and gravitation