Self-similar motion of a Nambu-Goto string

Abstract

We study the self-similar motion of a string in a self-similar spacetime by introducing the concept of a self-similar string, which is defined as the world sheet to which a homothetic vector field is tangent. It is shown that in Nambu-Goto theory, the equations of motion for a self-similar string reduce to those for a particle. Moreover, under certain conditions such as the hypersurface orthogonality of the homothetic vector field, the equations of motion for a self-similar string simplify to the geodesic equations on a (pseudo) Riemannian space. As a concrete example, we investigate a self-similar Nambu-Goto string in a spatially flat Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker expanding universe with self-similarity and obtain solutions of open and closed strings, which have various nontrivial configurations depending on the rate of the cosmic expansion. For instance, we obtain a circular solution that evolves linearly in the cosmic time while keeping its configuration by the balance between the effects of the cosmic expansion and string tension. We also show the instability for linear radial perturbation of the circular solutions.