Rethinking the Model of Moving Cosmic Strings Producing Anisotropy in the Microwave Background

Abstract

We re-analyze the issue of redshifts induced by a moving cosmic string by looking at moving sources and observers on a conical spacetime in a fully relativistic approach. By replacing the concept of a moving spacetime with the more clearly defined concept of moving sources and observers in the string spacetime, we show that there is no effect: the only redshift is a Doppler shift due to the motion of the source or observer.