{"paper":{"title":"Metastable cosmic strings are broken at the start","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["astro-ph.CO"],"primary_cat":"hep-ph","authors_text":"Edward Hardy, Ethan Carragher, Lorenzo Tranchedone, Nat\\'alie Koscelansk\\'a van IJcken","submitted_at":"2026-01-07T19:00:03Z","abstract_excerpt":"We show that metastable cosmic strings break at early times, either via finite-temperature effects or by attaching to pre-existing monopoles during network percolation. The resulting segments can be initially super-horizon in size and thus persist for a significant amount of time. If the strings do not re-percolate, the network's eventual destruction is typically due to this early-time breaking rather than late-time quantum tunnelling. Survival of strings to epochs probed by NANOGrav requires $m_M^2/\\mu\\gtrsim 10^3$, where $m_M$ and $\\mu$ are the monopole mass and the string tension respective"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2601.04320","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2601.04320/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}