Low Energy Effective Theory for Axion Strings

Abstract

We consider aspects of the low energy description of global cosmic strings. In the non-relativistic limit, we study the extent to which these are described by the combination of the Nambu-Gotto and Kalb-Ramond actions. While in a formal sense this is the case for infiniately long strings, for more realistic situations, the collective coordinates of the system do not provide a complete description for more than brief intervals; as time evolves it becomes necessary to include low momentum goldstone excitations as well.

11 pages Reference corrected, comments added to clarify that the focus is on the classical effective field theory; matching to simulations would be of interest but is not the subject here

References in corpus (3)

• Dark Matter from Axion Strings with Adaptive Mesh Refinement
• The dark-matter axion mass
• Comments on Axions, Domain Walls, and Cosmic Strings