We investigate recent claims concerning a new class of cosmic solutions in the Weinberg-Salam model. They have the general form of previously discussed semilocal and electroweak strings, but are modified by the presence of a nonzero W condensate in the core of the string. We explicitly construct such solutions for arbitrary values of the winding number N. We then prove that they are gauge equivalent to bare electroweak strings with winding number N-1. We also develop new asymptotic expressions for large-N strings.

• Received 8 December 1993

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.72.3646