Scaling in necklaces of monopoles and semipoles

Understand

Models of symmetry breaking in the early universe can produce networks of cosmic strings threading 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles.

• In certain cases there is a larger global symmetry group and the monopoles split into so-called semipoles.
• These networks are all known as cosmic necklaces.
• We carry out large-scale field theory simulations of the simplest model containing these objects, confirming that the energy density of networks of cosmic necklaces approaches scaling, i.e.