We study the stability of cosmic string wakes against the disruption by the dominant Gaussian fluctuations which are present in cosmological models. We find that for a string tension given by $G\mu ={10}^{-7}$ wakes remain locally stable until a redshift of $z=6$, and for a value of $G\mu ={10}^{-14}$ they are stable beyond a redshift of $z=20$. We study a global stability criterion which shows that wakes created by strings at times after $t_{\mathrm{eq}}$ are identifiable up to the present time, independent of the value of $G\mu$. Taking into account our criteria it is possible to develop strategies to search for the distinctive position space signals in cosmological maps which are induced by wakes.

• Received 6 November 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.93.123501