The gravity of dark vortices: effective field theory for branes and strings carrying localized flux

A Nielsen-Olesen vortex usually sits in an environment that expels the flux that is confined to the vortex, so flux is not present both inside and outside. We construct vortices for which this is not true, where the flux carried by the vortex also permeates the ‘bulk’ far from the vortex. The idea is to mix the vortex’s internal gauge flux with an external flux using off-diagonal kinetic mixing. Such ‘dark’ vortices could play a …