Blow-up analysis for a cosmic strings equation

In this paper we develop a blow-up analysis for solutions of an elliptic PDE of Liouville type over the plane. Such solutions describe the behavior of cosmic strings (parallel in a given direction) for a W-boson model coupled with Einstein's equation. We show how the blow-up behavior of the solutions is characterized, according to the physical parameters involved, by new and surprising phenomena. For example in some cases, after a suitable scaling, the blow-up profile of the solution is described in terms of an equations that bares a geometrical meaning in the context of the “uniformization” of the Riemann sphere with conical singularities.