Can a self-gravitating thin cosmic string obey the Nambu-Goto dynamics ?

Abstract

We assume that a self-gravitating string is locally described by a thin tube of matter represented by a ``smoothed conical metric''. If we impose a specific constraint on the model of string then its central line obeys the Nambu-Goto dynamics in the limit where the radius of the tube tends to zero. If no constraint is added then the world sheet of the central line is totally geodesic.

3 pages, latex requires mprocl.sty, no figures. To appear in the proceedings of the Eighth Marcel Grossmann Conference on General Relativity (Jerusalem, Israel, June 1997)