CHARACTERISTICS OF COSMIC-STRING SCALING CONFIGURATIONS

Using the formalism developed in a previous paper, we analyze the cosmological implications of our conclusions concerning the scaling behavior of a network of cosmic strings, in particular, the idea that once gravitational back reaction becomes important the transient scaling regime so far explored by numerical simulations will be replaced by a new "full scaling" regime, with slightly different parameters. This has consequences for the normalization of the string tension on all scales. We show how the new scaling solutions affect the gravitational wave bound from nucleosynthesis and the millisecond pulsar, and also describe the consequences from large scale structure up to COBE scales. © 1995 The American Physical Society.