Instantons for particles joined by strings in three dimensional gravity

We study the instantons describing the production of particles at the ends of codimension-one objects (strings and struts) in (2??+??1)-dimensional Minkowski and de Sitter spaces. A Minkowskian background allows only for systems with vanishing total mass, so that either negative mass particles or negative tension struts are required. On a de Sitter background, on the other hand, we find processes describing the production of string/particle systems with no negative energies involved. We also compute the probabilities of creating and of breaking an infinite cosmic string in de Sitter space. We perform our analysis of the system in de Sitter space employing a generalization of the toroidal coordinate system to the three-sphere.