Evidence for a Scaling Solution in Cosmic-String Evolution

We study, by means of numerical simulations, the most fundamental issue of cosmic-string evolution: the existence of a scaling solution. We find strong evidence that a scaling solution does indeed exist. This justifies the main assumption on which the cosmic-string theories of galaxy formation are based. Our main conclusion coincides with that of Albrecht and Turok in previous work, but our results are not consistent with theirs. In fact, our results indicate that the details of string evolution are very different from the standard dogma.