THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE COBE DIFFUSE MICROWAVE-RADIATION RESULTS FOR COSMIC STRINGS

We compare the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation measured by the COBE experiment to those predicted by cosmic string theories. We use an analytic model for the DELTAT/T power spectrum that is based on our previous numerical simulations of strings, under the assumption that cosmic strings are the sole source of the measured anisotropy. This implies a value for the string mass per unit length, mu = 1.5 +/- 0.5 x 10(-6)c2/G. This is within the range of values required for cosmic strings to successfully seed the formation of large-scale structures in the universe. These results clearly encourage further studies of DELTAT/T and large-scale structure in the cosmic string model.