It's a bit confusing if a cosmic string behaves almost just like a regular piece of wire, but their mechanism may be viable under certain assumptions. At least, a new candidate explanation of the strong 511 keV line has been added to the list.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Light Milky Cosmic Strings
Have you heard about the excess radiation at the 511 keV line emanating from our galactic center? As announced in New Scientist, two physicists from Ohio argue that the positrons might be produced inside very light superconducting strings, whose tension is near the TeV scale (much lighter than the string conjectured to be relevant for CSL-1 and other recently discussed observations), by electromagnetic induction:
