Cosmic Strings on the Lattice
  We develop a formalism for the quantization of topologically stable excitations in the 4-dimensional abelian lattice gauge theory. The excitations are global and local (Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen) strings and monopoles. The operators of creation and annihilation of string states are constructed; the string Green functions are represented as a path integral over random surfaces. Topological excitations play an important role in the early universe. In the broken symmetry phase of the $U(1)$ spin model, closed global cosmic strings arise, while in the Higgs phase of the noncompact gauge-Higgs model, local cosmic strings are present. The compact gauge-Higgs model also involves monopoles. Then the strings can break if their ends are capped by monopoles. The topology of the Euclidean string world sheets are studied by numerical simulations. 
A.K. Bukenov, A.V. Pochinsky, M.I. Polikarpov, L. Polley and U.-J.   Wiese