PROPERTIES OF REALISTIC COSMIC-STRING LOOPS

We examine the angular momentum, gravitational radiation, number of kinks, and electromagnetic self-interaction for cosmic-string loops produced in a numerical simulation of loop fragmentation. The final distributions of both the string angular momenta and the power radiated in gravitational radiation appear to be independent of the initial conditions. The median specific angular momentum is |J|l2=0.01. For gravitational radiation, (dEdt)G2 is strongly peaked in the region =40-60, with a distribution well fitted by p()=(122)exp[-(1-)222] , with =1.74×10-2 and =5.85×10-3. Most stable daughter loops have between 2 and 5 kinks. Electromagnetic self-interaction can give rise to exponentially growing ac currents on highly asymmetric "random" loop trajectories. This dynamo property is not correlated with either self-intersection of the loops or with their angular momentum. © 1990 The American Physical Society.