Quantum tunneling of superconducting string currents

Abstract

We investigate the decay of current on a superconducting cosmic string through quantum tunneling. We construct the instanton describing tunneling in a simple bosonic string model, and estimate the decay rate. The tunneling rate vanishes in the limit of a chiral current. This conclusion, which is supported by a symmetry argument, is expected to apply in general. It has important implications for the stability of chiral vortons.

16 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Chiral Vortons and Cosmological Constraints on Particle Physics

Cited by in corpus (7)

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• Vorton Existence and Stability
• On the Behaviour and Stability of Superconducting Currents
• Drum vortons in high density QCD
• Cosmic D-Strings and Vortons in Supergravity
• Vortons in the SO(5) model of high temperature superconductivity
• Dynamical simulations of colliding superconducting strings