Are nontopological strings produced at the electroweak phase transition?

Abstract

We formulate a local condition for a nontopological defect to be present. We apply it for electroweak strings and estimate the probability of their existence at the Ginzburg temperature. As a result we find strings long enough to serve for baryon-number generation are unlikely to be produced.

Comments: 12 pages (REVTeX), no figure, Physical Review Letters in press