Low Energy Effective Theory for Axion Strings

Abstract

We consider aspects of the low energy description of global cosmic strings. In the non-relativistic limit, we study the extent to which these are described by the combination of the Nambu-Gotto and Kalb-Ramond actions. While in a formal sense this is the case for infiniately long strings, for more realistic situations, the collective coordinates of the system do not provide a complete description for more than brief intervals; as time evolves it becomes necessary to include low momentum goldstone excitations as well.