Paper detail

Angle deficit & non-local gravitoelectromagnetism around a slowly spinning cosmic string

Cosmic strings, as remnants of the symmetry breaking phase in the Early Universe, may be susceptible to non-local physics. Here we show that the presence of a Poincaré-invariant non-locality -- parametrized by a factor $\exp(-\Box\ell^2)$ -- regularizes the gravitational field and thereby changes the properties of spacetime: it is now simply connected and the angle deficit around the cosmic string becomes a function of the radial distance. Similar changes occur for the non-local gravitomagnetic field of a rotating cosmic string, and we translate these mathematical facts into the language of non-local gravitoelectromagnetism and thereby provide a physical interpretation. We hope that these insights might prove helpful in the search for traces of non-local physics in our Universe.