ABSTRACT
Numerical simulations of the dynamics of (non-gravitating) cosmic string networks strongly suggest that realistic cosmic strings-if present at all in the early Universe-would have had structure on all sizes down to a length scale determined by the dissipative effects of gravitational radiation [BB91]. In addition, it is thought that the vast bulk of the energy of the network would have quickly been channeled into a system of small, high-velocity loops, with perhaps one long (horizon-sized) string per horizon volume. The metric (7.28) due to an infinite straight cosmic string in vacuum is, therefore, unlikely to be of direct cosmological interest.
