Correlations in Cosmic String Networks

Abstract

We investigate scaling and correlations of the energy and momentum in an evolving network of cosmic strings in Minkowski space. These quantities are of great interest, as they must be understood before accurate predictions for the power spectra of the perturbations in the matter and radiation in the early Universe can be made. We argue that Minkowski space provides a reasonable approximation to a Friedmann background for string dynamics and we use our results to construct a simple model of the network, in which it is considered to consist of randomly placed segments moving with random velocities. This model works well in accounting for features of the two-time correlation functions, and even better for the power spectra.