ABSTRACT
As was seen in chapter 9, all known exact self-gravitating string solutions describe infinite strings in a spacetime with a high degree of symmetry. Although solutions of this type do have some heuristic value, their dynamics are, in general, not very interesting. More valuable from the point of view of understanding the gravitational properties of cosmic strings would be a solution with non-trivial (that is, dissipative) time evolution of the world sheet. Especially revealing would be a solution supporting the formation of a cusp. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that an exact solution of this type-analytic or numerical-will ever be developed using current techniques.
