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Revisiting curvature corrections for field theory cosmic strings

Josu C. Aurrekoetxea1,*, Jose J. Blanco-Pillado2,3,4,†, Alberto García Martín-Caro3,4,5,‡, and J. M. Queiruga6,7,§

  • *Contact author: jaurreko@mit.edu
  • †Contact author: josejuan.blanco@ehu.eus
  • ‡Contact author: alberto.garcia.martin-caro@uvigo.gal
  • §Contact author: xose.queiruga@usal.es
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 096010 – Published 10 November, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8d2s-t5b9

Abstract

We present a combined analytical and numerical study of the effective action of field theory cosmic strings in the Abelian-Higgs model in flat space. Starting directly from the underlying solitonic field theory description, we provide a systematic derivation of the low energy effective action and present evidence for the absence of nontrivial curvature correction terms when only the translational Goldstone modes are retained. Using this framework, we extend the effective theory to include higher energy fluctuations of the soliton profile, which map to massive degrees of freedom propagating on the worldsheet. We show that the leading curvature contribution enters only through the coupling between these massive modes and the worldsheet Ricci scalar. We validate the resulting effective theory via lattice simulations of the full field theory equations of motion in flat space, implemented with adaptive mesh refinement to capture the string dynamics across different scales. The numerical simulations confirm the dynamics obtained using the effective action in its validity range. Furthermore, they also demonstrate the existence of the predicted parametric instability of excited strings that drives the transfer of energy from massive excitations to the Goldstone sector.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 096010– Published 10 November, 2026
  • Received 13 May 2026
  • Accepted 6 August 2026
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