Large-scale peculiar velocities from cosmic strings

Recent observations indicate that large regions of the Universe 60 h-1 Mpc in radius may be streaming coherently with velocities up to 1,000 km s-1 with respect to the rest frame determined by the cosmic microwave background. In the paper, the peculiar velocities which arise in the cosmic string theory of galaxy formation are estimated using numerical simulations. In contrast to models of formation of structure based on primordial linear energy density fluctuations with random phases, the distribution of velocities is highly non-gaussian on scales smaller than 50 h-1 Mpc. The most likely velocities are approximately scale independent on scales between 5 and 50 h-1 Mpc. (author)