Is the Universe Defective? Part 4: Hiding in Plain Darkness

This is Part 4 of a series on topological defects.

Read Parts1,2, and3. The WHAT? Yeah, the vortons.

It’s not an anime monster-hunting show.

It’s not some AI startup company.

It’s a…it’s a thing.

I think. Listen, what I’m about to tell you is so hypothetical that it could make even a string theorist blush.

We are deep in the annals of physics here.

I don’t want you to trust ANY of what I’m about to say. But that’s never stopped us before, so why stop now? You see, cosmic string loops are supposed to be suicidal.

They’re these high-tension whips of space-time that vibrate and oscillate so fast they SCREAM out gravitational waves until they fade away into nothingness.

Usually, that’s the end of the story.

The loop shrinks, it vanishes, and the universe is down one defect. But that doesn’t HAVE to be the end of the story.

I mean, cosmic strings are themselves super-hypothetical, so we have some options. Imagine a cosmic string loop that isn’t just sitting there vibrating.

It’s also spinning.

Really, really fast.

Why should they spin? Well why NOT, buddy? Who are you to say that they could never spin? And if they’re spinning, they have angular momentum (that’s kind of the definition).

But as the loop emits energy, it gets smaller.

But you can’t just get rid of angular momentum.

Which means that as it gets smaller it spins even faster.