Vortex Strings in a Two-Component Superfluid Vacuum: Cosmic Strings, Dark Matter, and the String/Knot Duality

We explore the possibility that the central one-dimensional intuition of string theory may apply more naturally to a dark-sector condensate than to the visible sector. We propose that the vacuum is a two-component superfluid: psi_SM (the Standard Model condensate, described by knot topology with aspect ratio R/xi ~ 1) and psi_GUT (a residual grand-unified condensate, described by string topology with R/xi ~ 10^14). In this model, visible particles are associated with compact vortex knots, while dark particles are associated with thin vortex loops. Cosmic strings (the CSc-1 candidate) and galactic-center radio filaments (Yusef-Zadeh et al.) are macroscopic vortex lines in psi_GUT. The dark particle spectrum---a…