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Published online 10 March 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.143
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Cosmic strings could solve positron mystery
Collapsing defects in the Universe's structure may generate antimatter excess.
A network of 'cosmic strings' criss-crossing the Universe could be responsible for a mysterious flux of antimatter particles which has been puzzling astronomers.
Theoretical astrophysicists have long proposed the existence of cosmic strings, thinner than an atom yet stretching vast distances across the Universe.
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I would like to know how charge is conserved if colliding or evaporating cosmic strings are neutral to start with and they generate an excess of positrons. What about the electrons that would likely be created simultaneously? Are they simply too few to show up against the matter-domintated background?
The article gives too few details about the problem that led to postulating cosmic strings. On a general level, despite being open to very weird ideas, the concept of such strings is not very appealing to me, more like result of fantasy after watching a SF movie. Any such fantasy to be realistic must be able to produce quantitatively verifiable results, and this is not the case with the cosmic strings. The physicist should be looking for the explanations that are much simpler.