Cosmic F- and D-strings from pure Yang-Mills theory

We discuss the formation of cosmic strings or macroscopic color flux tubes after the deconfinement/con-finement phase transition in the pure Yang-Mills theory. Based on holographic dual descriptions, these cosmic strings can be interpreted as fundamental (F-) strings or wrapped D-branes (which we call as D-strings) in the gravity side, depending on the structure of the gauge group. In fact, the reconnec-tion probabilities of the F-and D-strings are suppressed by factors of 1/N2 and e-cN, where c = O(1), in a large-N limit, respectively. Supported by the picture of electric-magnetic duality, we discuss that color flux tubes form after the deconfinement/confinement phase transition, just like the formation of local cosmic strings after spontaneous symmetry breaking in the weak-U(1) gauge theory. We use an ex-tended velocity-dependent one-scale model to describe the dynamics of the string network and calculate the gravitational wave signals from string loops. We also discuss the dependence on the size of produced string loops.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons .org /licenses /by /4 .0/). Funded by SCOAP3.

Automated summary

We discuss the formation of cosmic strings or macroscopic color flux tubes after the deconfinement/con-finement phase transition in the pure Yang-Mills theory. These cosmic strings, based on holographic dual descriptions, can be interpreted as F-strings or D-strings in the gravity side, depending on the structure of the gauge group. The reconnection probabilities of F- and D-strings are suppressed by factors of 1/N^2 and e^-cN, respectively, in the large-N limit. The formation of color flux tubes after the phase transition is similar to the formation of local cosmic strings after spontaneous symmetry breaking in the weak-U(1) gauge theory. We use a velocity-dependent one-scale model to describe the dynamics of the string network and calculate the gravitational wave signals from string loops, considering the dependence on the size of produced string loops.